ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS

CULTURE, MEDIA AND SPORT

The Secretary of State was asked-

Listed Sporting Events

John Grogan: When he expects to respond to the David Davies review of listed sporting events.

Ben Bradshaw: Let me begin by apologising for the absence of my hon. Friend the Minister for Sport, who is en route back from Vancouver.
	I intend to make a decision on this issue as soon as possible following the close of the Government's statutory consultation.

John Grogan: When considering representations from the England and Wales Cricket Board, will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that grass-roots cricket receives as much money from the lottery and the Sports Council as it does from broadcasting, that the principal sponsor of English cricket says that it is far more likely to renew its sponsorship if there is some free-to-air exposure, and that the proposal to relist the Ashes effectively means simulcasting one series from 2017 on free-to-air and subscription television?

Ben Bradshaw: As my hon. Friend is absolutely right to say, grass-roots sports benefit not only from the revenue raised by the selling of television rights but from significant central Government funds, through our sporting bodies and the lottery. I am well aware of the strong support in the House and the country for the return of test cricket to free-to-view television. We will consider all representations very carefully before making a decision that we think will be in the interests of the public.

John Whittingdale: Notwithstanding that, does the Secretary of State accept that our success in a number of sports in recent years, particularly cricket and golf, has been largely due to the huge amount of money that has gone into those games as a result of the sale of broadcasting rights? The ECB has estimated that listing the Ashes tests will cost it £100 million. Will the Secretary of State think about that very carefully when he considers the Davies report? If he proceeds with the listing, huge damage will be done to grass-roots sports throughout the country.

Ben Bradshaw: We will consider all representations very carefully. The hon. Gentleman has made an important point about the potential impact on some of the sporting organisations, although some of the figures that are being bandied about may be open to challenge. There is a balance to be struck between the understandable desire of sporting organisations to make a lot of money by selling television rights and the right of the public to have access to some of the big sporting occasions that the nation enjoys.

Jim Sheridan: Whatever the final decision, it will have different impacts on different parts of the country. I am thinking particularly of the impact on grass-roots football. Before the final decision is made, will my right hon. Friend receive a representation from Scottish football fans and members of the Scottish Football Association to ensure that there is very little impact on grass-roots football in Scotland?

Ben Bradshaw: We are happy to receive as many representations as anyone wants to submit.

Hugh Robertson: A considerable number of county cricket chairmen, including one whom I believe has been mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon and East Chelmsford (Mr. Whittingdale), are writing to Members in all parts of the House about the listed events review, and they have been joined today by the International Cricket Council. Given that Sport England grants cricket-I think-£37.8 million, and given that, as my hon. Friend said, the county cricket chairmen claim that the hit to cricket will be £100 million, will the Secretary of State confirm that, having extended the review to the middle of March, the Government intend to conduct an independent economic assessment? Without such an assessment, it will be almost impossible to reconcile the two conflicting claims.

Ben Bradshaw: I can confirm that, but I urge the hon. Gentleman, who regularly raises sporting bodies' concerns about this matter in the House, to recognise that there are two sides to the debate. I was surprised to read last week that he thought it would be foolish to list test cricket, and that listing events was
	"an artificial interference in the freedom of a sport's governing body."
	That is the complete opposite of what was said by the hon. Member for South-West Surrey (Mr. Hunt), the shadow Secretary of State, who, only last November, welcomed the Davies report and the principle of listing only last November. That further U-turn from the Conservatives demonstrates their complete confusion over their policy.

Tourism Industry

Adrian Sanders: What recent assessment he has made of the prospects for the domestic tourism industry in 2010; and if he will make a statement.

Margaret Hodge: We expect continuing positive growth in domestic tourism following a 7 per cent. increase in the number of overnight trips and a 4 per cent. increase in visitor expenditure in the first 10 months of 2009. VisitBritain has forecast that the number of visitors from overseas could increase by 0.8 per cent. in 2010, with a corresponding rise of 3.8 per cent. in visitor spend.

Adrian Sanders: Is the Minister aware of a study of lower VAT rates by the British Association of Leisure Parks, Piers and Attractions, which concluded that were we to adopt a VAT rate for accommodation and restaurants similar to the rates charged by our competitors in Europe, we would not only boost domestic tourism but increase Treasury revenues in the long run?

Margaret Hodge: Indeed. I am also aware that BALPPA's figures for last year showed a 10 per cent. increase in the number of visitors to its members' attractions.
	I have received representations on the issue of VAT. That issue is obviously a matter for the Chancellor, but we provide visitors with benefits that other countries do not provide. For example, free access to our museums is a very important attraction that encourages people to visit the United Kingdom.

Rob Marris: What effect does the Minister think changes to the industrial building allowance tax regime will have on the domestic tourist industry?

Margaret Hodge: Again, I have had representations on that issue, and, again, I have to say that it is a matter for the Chancellor. The fact that we have been able to encourage both domestic tourism and increasing numbers of people from Europe to visit Britain ought, of course, to benefit the tourism industry, and all the figures and statistics suggest that we are moving in the right direction.

Nigel Evans: As the Minister will know, we have a very good network of farms with second homes that are let out as holiday lets, particularly in the Ribble Valley. In the last Budget, however, a tax change made it less advantageous for the owners of these second homes to let them out as holiday lets. Will the Minister make representations to the Chancellor, asking him to right the wrong that has been done so that we do not lose this network, particularly as it has proved to be a great income supplement on farms that do not make a lot of money?

Margaret Hodge: I am very aware of that problem, and I have taken members of the industry who are already particularly affected to a meeting with the Chancellor. The position is, however, that we are being driven by European regulations, not by any desire to increase income to the Treasury. [Hon. Members: "Ah."] Yes, this is, indeed, to do with European regulations, and if Opposition Members do not like that, I am not quite sure what they propose to do about it. I shall, however, repeat to the hon. Gentleman what I have already said to the industry, which is that if it comes forward with a proposition that is workable for it and that complies with the EU regulations, both myself and Treasury Ministers will look at that very seriously. We do not want to do anything that has a negative impact on that part of the industry.

Scottish Television

William Bain: What assessment has been made of the likely effect on employment in Scotland of reclassification of Scottish Television as an independent producer.

Ben Bradshaw: We are currently assessing the responses to our consultation on this proposal, and, as my hon. Friend will be aware, there are differing views in Scotland about the benefits in terms of jobs and production. We will take all these responses and views into consideration before proceeding further.

William Bain: I thank my right hon. Friend for his reply. In conducting a further assessment of the responses to the consultation, will he accept that, although there is a very strong argument for the share of commissions from Scotland increasing from the current 2 per cent., any reclassification should be made only after consideration has been given to the effect on independent television producers in Scotland as well?

Ben Bradshaw: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend on that. On a recent visit to Glasgow, I had an opportunity to discuss these issues with representatives of STV, the BBC, which has an indirect interest in this, and smaller producers, and we certainly would not want to do anything that had a negative impact on any of them. Our common objective is to increase the amount of domestic production in Scotland and in the UK as a whole.

Adam Price: May I raise with the Secretary of State another matter of considerable import to Scottish television-and it would be remiss of me on St. David's day not to mention that it is also of considerable interest to us in Wales-which is the prospects for the independently funded news consortiums? Is there any realistic chance that the contracts will be signed before the general election, and if they are not, will not the entire process simply be placed in abeyance until the outcome of the election is known?

Ben Bradshaw: I am grateful for your assent that that question is in order, Mr. Speaker. I cannot promise the hon. Gentleman that the contracts will be signed before the general election, but it is certainly our intention to announce the preferred bidders, both in Wales and Scotland and in the sole English pilot region of Tyne Tees and Border. Whether we manage to secure quality regional news in Wales, Scotland and the English regions in the future will depend on the outcome of the next general election, because the Labour party is committed to achieving that, while the Conservatives have absolutely no proposal whatever to do so.

Television Production (Funding)

Paul Rowen: What steps the Government are taking to encourage funding for the development of original UK television content.

Ben Bradshaw: The Government are taking a number of steps to encourage more investment in original UK content, including through the Digital Economy Bill that is going through Parliament. I also welcome the fact that the BBC has said its current review will include steps to boost investment in domestic content.

Paul Rowen: As I am sure the Secretary of State is aware, investment in original content has declined by £340 million in the last five years. In the light of that, will the Secretary of State consider using the Digital Economy Bill as an opportunity to repeal the contract rights renewal regulations, which penalise, in particular, ITV's investment in original content?

Ben Bradshaw: I do not think it is practicable to do that in the Bill going through the House, because that Bill contains a lot. We have carefully examined the possibility of doing what the hon. Gentleman suggests, and I am sympathetic to the point that he makes and to the complaints that have been made about this by ITV. As he will be aware, the Competition Commission has not yet made its final ruling and we should await the outcome of that. ITV would, of course, be perfectly able to appeal against that decision, and this Government would be very supportive of such an appeal.

Barry Sheerman: Does my right hon. Friend agree that if we are to get more original content, we need more original talent? Is it not time that the BBC stopped looking as though it is a closed shop for the Yentobs and the Dimblebys, and enable young people who come from ordinary backgrounds but who have talent to make programmes?

Ben Bradshaw: I think that there are great talents of people of all ages; I happen to think that David Dimbleby, who I believe is in his early 70s, does a remarkable job-

Barry Sheerman: It is a terrible programme.

Ben Bradshaw: My hon. Friend may not like it, but David Dimbleby does a remarkable job. There is also very good young talent on the BBC. One of the BBC's great strengths is that it nurtures and values talent of all ages and in all types of taste. Perhaps that is not to the taste of everybody in this House, but that is exactly what the BBC is there to do.

Don Foster: May I welcome what the Secretary of State said about contract rights renewal and ITV, but does he acknowledge that it is the BBC that is one of the key providers of original UK content and that it needs security of funding to be able to plan for the future?  [Interruption.] Does he, therefore, accept that it does not help if a potential Government start talking about top-slicing and cutting the BBC down to size or even, as he has done, about bringing the licence fee to an end in just three years?

Ben Bradshaw: The whole House will have heard the chorus of disapproval from Conservative Members at the hon. Gentleman's suggestion that the BBC should have proper secure funding in the future. I agree with him; I think that the BBC is probably the best broadcasting organisation in the world. It is a very valuable part of our media landscape, and it is hugely important in terms of nurturing talent and investing in UK production. Of course there will be a debate about the future of the BBC, and the future of its funding and the form of it, as that always happens when we have a discussion about the charter and licence fee renewal. That is the time to have that debate, and we should support the BBC and all the good work it does for the country.

Jeremy Hunt: Digital piracy is one of the biggest concerns for people investing in British TV, so what specific measures has the Secretary of State taken to block access to websites that deliberately promote illegal downloading?

Ben Bradshaw: The hon. Gentleman will be aware of the position, because of our discussions about this both in private and in the other place about measures in the Digital Economy Bill. I suggest that the most constructive thing he could do to help prevent this serious theft, which is losing our creative economy hundreds of millions of pounds a year, is to support the Government's attempts to get this Bill on to the statute book, and not to try to undermine them.

Jeremy Hunt: But the Secretary of State knows that clause 17 cannot be used to block access to illegal downloading websites-he told me so himself. It is possible to rephrase the Digital Economy Bill to do this. The person who would do that would presumably be the Minister responsible for the creative industries, so why has the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Simon) not been replaced since he stepped down? Is it that the Secretary of State is waiting for the country to replace not just one Minister, but all of them?

Ben Bradshaw: The hon. Gentleman knows very well why we do not think that his solution of site blocking is a sensible way forward. He has received a briefing on it, and if he disagrees with our reasons, he should make his concerns plain to us. However, I should like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to my erstwhile colleague who, as Minister with responsibility for the digital economy, did a great job. As the hon. Gentleman knows, ministerial appointments are a matter for the Prime Minister. In the meantime, my right hon. Friend the Minister of State and I are coping fairly well, thank you very much.

Lindsay Hoyle: What estimate he has made of the level of funding for television programme production in the UK in the last five years.

Ben Bradshaw: Until the recent fall in advertising revenue, there had been a steady and welcome increase in funding for UK production. We would expect this increase to resume as the economy recovers and as a result of the measures that I was outlining a moment ago.

Lindsay Hoyle: I must congratulate the Secretary of State on his support for product placement-this is going to make a difference. When will the necessary legislation be in place and what benefit will it give to Granadaland, which has fine studios for the production of local television?

Ben Bradshaw: We intend to lay the order in the next few days-either this week or next-and, as I understand it, it will then be on the statute book within three weeks, as long as it is not prayed against.

Patrick Cormack: Has the Secretary of State seen the recent report from the Select Committee on Northern Ireland Affairs? It indicates that Northern Ireland has been shamefully neglected in the funding of television programmes, that Northern Ireland is not adequately portrayed in this country and that talent is not sufficiently encouraged there. When the Minister appeared before the Committee, he was totally ignorant and had not even been to Northern Ireland.

Ben Bradshaw: I have certainly been to Northern Ireland many times, although not in my current capacity. I shall certainly look at the recommendations made by the hon. Gentleman's Committee and I shall respond to him, if I may, in writing. I would add, however, that we have recently committed ourselves to some considerable funding for Northern Ireland to help preserve the Irish language service when the digital switchover happens. He will also be aware, as he takes a strong interest in these things, that some of the commercial pressures that the rest of the commercial ITV network has come under across the UK have not been so severe in Northern Ireland. UTV has still performed very strongly, because of the strength of its brand.

Participation in Sport

Derek Wyatt: What assessment he has made of his Department's progress in increasing the level of participation in sport since 1997.

Ben Bradshaw: The number of adults regularly playing sport has increased since the figures were first collected in 2005 by more than 600,000 to just under 7 million. There has also been a dramatic turnaround in school sport. In 2003, only one in four children got at least two hours of quality physical education. Today, 90 per cent. do and more than half are doing at least three hours a week.

Derek Wyatt: I thank the Secretary of State for those figures, which are impressive. However, does he think that we would have made even more progress if we had had a separate Department for sport and health?

Ben Bradshaw: No. I think that the structure of governance that we have at the moment, which we introduced in 1997, is a very good one. That does not mean, however, that there are not very good arguments for my Department working much more closely with the Department of Health and the Department for Children, Schools and Families, as we have been on the whole public health, sport and physical activity agenda. We have been seeing the fruits of that co-operation and we will see further fruits of that co-operation in the weeks to come and in our manifesto.

Christopher Fraser: The school sports partnership impact study found that declining participation was especially marked among the 16-to-19 age group. What progress has been made in reducing the number of 16-year-olds who drop out of sport?

Ben Bradshaw: The challenge that the hon. Gentleman puts his finger on is that it is more difficult, obviously, when young people are not necessarily in full-time or compulsory education to devise a curriculum that ensures that they take part in physical activity. However, strenuous efforts are going on at local level through the school sports partnership and other sports bodies to address the particular concern that he raises. I will happily write to him with the latest figures on participation among 16 to 18-year-olds if that would be helpful.

Travelling Circuses

Peter Luff: What progress has been made in discussions between his Department, the local authorities committee on regulatory services and representatives of the circus industry on reform of the licensing regime for travelling circuses; and if he will make a statement.

Margaret Hodge: We have convened a working group of stakeholders, which includes local government and circus representatives, to develop options for what is called a portable licence for travelling circuses. The group met on 23 February and hopes to conclude its work by late spring, after which there will be a public consultation on possible options.

Peter Luff: I hope that the Minister will pass to her colleague the Under-Secretary my gratitude for this progress-perhaps belated progress, but progress none the less-that is being made. If I may take a liberty, may I adapt her party's election slogan and say that if she keeps up momentum, we might be able to look forward to a future circus for all?

Margaret Hodge: I note what the hon. Gentleman has said and I congratulate him, because he has taken a close interest in these matters. I think that his lobbying has finally been successful. I know that the group is meeting again at the end of March and I hope that the consultation will then be produced immediately after the election and that the new regulations can be brought into force quickly.

Media Images (Women)

Andrew Pelling: What recent discussions he has had with media representatives on the portrayal of women in (a) publications and (b) broadcasts.

Margaret Hodge: We have regular discussions with the independent regulators-Ofcom and the Advertising Standards Authority-and keep these matters under constant review.

Andrew Pelling: I was encouraged by the positive response from the Leader of the House when I raised a similar issue on Thursday. Has the Minister been able to take cognisance of the report from the Royal College of Psychiatrists, which suggested joint working between advertisers, media, Government and physicians to deal with this very important issue?

Margaret Hodge: I noted the hon. Gentleman's comments to the Leader of the House last week. This is a very important issue and it is very difficult to find specific influences on outcomes for children and their behaviour. We have also had the report from Linda Papadopoulos last Thursday, which we are studying to see whether there are implications to which we need to have regard and whether we need to take further action.

Diane Abbott: Is the Minister aware of the quite widespread concern among women, particularly mothers, about the proliferation of lads mags? The concern is not that they exist, but that if one goes into a newsagents with one's child to buy some sweets, one finds them at the child's eye level, often displayed in prime position. What can be done to toughen the regulatory regime to ensure that those magazines are put on the top shelf where they deserve to be?

Margaret Hodge: I am, indeed, aware of those concerns, and I know that the vast majority of lads mags are on the top shelves. The last figures I saw suggested that 58 per cent. were put on the top shelf. Until now, this has been a matter for self-regulation, but we keep it under constant review; it is an issue on which all Members of the House share concerns.

Live Music (Small Venues)

John Hemming: What progress has been made in encouraging the performance of live music in small venues.

Ben Bradshaw: Small venues are using the new minor variations process to add live music to their licences, and we have also been encouraging the use of the existing incidental live music exemption. The Government are also consulting on a proposal to exempt small live music events from the Licensing Act 2003.

John Hemming: I thank the Secretary of State for that answer. Will the Government be supporting the Live Music Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Mr. Foster), which will assist venues that do not serve alcohol, such as village halls and school halls, in that regard?

Ben Bradshaw: We think that there are a number of problems with the Bill, partly because there has been no formal consultation on its proposals. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that the proposals in the Bill are strongly opposed by the Conservative-controlled Local Government Association and by LACORS-Local Authorities Co-ordinators of Regulatory Services. Without such proper consultation, we would be very worried about the legal robustness of such legislation. Also, we do not think that the focus on the old two-in-a-bar rule, which the Liberal Democrats and the music industry campaigned against for many years, is the right way forward. We think that our proposal is sensible and that it balances the needs of the music industry, of young musicians to get experience of performing and of local residents and councils regarding undue noise and disturbance.

Kelvin Hopkins: Is it not sensible to apply restrictions on the volume of sound that is produced in small venues rather than on the nature of music or sound being produced? The situation is such that a single musician, heavily amplified, can make more noise than a jazz big band; I think that is a great shame.

Ben Bradshaw: Yes, my hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is why we believe that the approach proposed by the Liberal Democrats through the Bill that originated in the other place is not the way forward to address this problem.

Bob Spink: I thank the Government for the action that they have taken to relax licensing requirements for charitable events, but will the Secretary of State give further, strong guidance to local authorities that are still being over-officious in preventing small and medium-sized charity events from proceeding?

Ben Bradshaw: Yes. One of the main problems in this area is not that existing guidance and legislation are flawed, but that they are implemented differently by different local authorities. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to put his finger on the problem that some local authorities are much more sensible and proportionate in their enforcement of the rules and guidelines while others are much more, as he calls it, officious. Authorities should look to adopt the best practice guidance, which respects the needs of local communities for peace and quiet but does not stifle opportunities for young, creative musicians to perform and practise.

Edward Vaizey: The Government are fond of saying that there has been an increase in live music since the Licensing Act came in. One reason for that is that the number of events that need to be licensed has increased, and another is the coming on stream of the O2 arena and Wembley stadium. Is the Minister aware that the UK Statistics Authority has said:
	The DCMS...and Press Office will be alerted to the possibility of misinterpretation and the need to exercise caution when quoting the figures?
	Can he confirm that the UK Statistics Authority has written to him in those terms and that he will exercise caution in using those figures in future?

Ben Bradshaw: Unlike the Conservative party, we always take very seriously what the UK Statistics Authority says, and I shall do so. Certainly on the information we have, I do not think anyone challenges the fact that there has been significant growth in the amount of live music, but the hon. Gentleman is right to identify the fact that it has been concentrated in medium and larger-sized venues. Similar growth has not been seen in smaller venues, which is exactly why we are proposing to extend the exemption to them.
	Again, however, I am afraid I am still completely confused about the hon. Gentleman's policy. On the one hand, he told the Performers Alliance, at a reception at Parliament recently, that he supported Lord Clement-Jones's Bill; but on the other, the Conservative Local Government Association is vehemently opposed to any exemption for licensed premises.

Cultural Olympiad

Ann Winterton: What recent progress has been made on the programme for the Cultural Olympiad; and if he will make a statement.

Margaret Hodge: Three major cultural projects have been launched so far, and nearly 150 projects have been awarded the Inspire mark. More than 1,400 open weekend events were held during 2008 and 2009. In July 2009, the Cultural Olympiad Board was established, placing delivery of the Cultural Olympiad in the hands of our world-renowned cultural sector.

Ann Winterton: Does the right hon. Lady believe that further progress could be made if the rather pompous title Cultural Olympiad was dropped for something in plain English that describes to the general public what it actually means? Will she ensure that if there is a lasting cultural legacy from the Olympics, it is spread throughout the United Kingdom and not just confined to London?

Margaret Hodge: I have a lot of sympathy with the views of the hon. Lady-

Peter Luff: On this issue.

Margaret Hodge: On this issue. It is for the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games and the Cultural Olympiad Board to look at the name, and I know that Tony Hall, as chairman of the board, is suggesting a new title.
	I also have a lot of sympathy for the view that the benefits of the Cultural Olympiad-as it is known now-should be shared throughout the country. Many of the events to date have been outside London, and we need to do more and more to make sure that they take place throughout Britain.

Broadcasting (Impartiality)

John Robertson: What recent discussions he has had with broadcast media industry representatives on the impartiality of news and current affairs programmes.

Ben Bradshaw: Impartiality is an essential element of Britain's broadcasting culture. The suggestion that the requirement for impartiality in broadcasting should be lifted that has been made by the Conservatives and some of their friends in the media would be a regrettable, even dangerous, step.

John Robertson: I thank my right hon. Friend for his answer. I know he agrees that some people in the House would like to get rid of the impartiality rules for everybody except the BBC. Does he agree that should not happen? The only thing we want in relation to Fox News is for hunting not to be repealed.

Ben Bradshaw: I think my hon. Friend is absolutely right. When one looks at all the surveys of public attitudes towards broadcasting in this country, one sees that one of the things the public greatly value is the requirement on broadcasters to be impartial. It would be a retrograde step and a dangerous step for democracy, when we look-as my hon. Friend has-at the landscape in the United States under proposals similar to those the Conservatives would like to introduce in the UK. It is bad for democracy, bad for the quality of broadcasting and the public will not like it.

National Lottery Funding (Sport)

David Evennett: How much national lottery funding has gone to sport since 2005.

Ben Bradshaw: Since April 2005, the national lottery has raised £1.1 billion for the sport good cause. In addition, in that period the Big Lottery Fund distributed more than £700 million of lottery money to projects focused exclusively on community sport and physical activity. The Big Lottery Fund has also funded many other community projects that include some element of sport and physical activity.

David Evennett: I thank the Secretary of State for that response. However, is he aware that many people in my constituency feel that the proportion of national lottery money going to sport has been inadequate and that Ministers and the Government have funnelled lottery funding to their pet projects at the expense of sport?

Ben Bradshaw: I believe that hon. Members on both sides of the House are aware that we have the Olympics games in 2012, so, yes, of course a proportion of the funding that used to go not just to sport but to other good cases has been diverted to the Olympics, but that is absolutely right. We want the Olympics to be a great success, but when they are over in 2012, that funding will return to those original causes. The hon. Gentleman must answer the question about the impact of the Conservative party's policy of withdrawing the funds derived from the Big Lottery Fund and instead going back to the four original pillars, which would hit community, sports and leisure projects in his constituency.

Peter Bone: I do not know whether the Secretary of State wants to come round to this side of the House, because he seems to be asking the questions rather than answering them. Could he answer this one? Representatives of Northamptonshire county cricket club came to see me on Friday. It is one of the less prosperous county cricket teams and its representatives are very concerned about the money that they will lose if Sky loses the right to the exclusive use of cricket on the media. I know that this has been discussed before, but substituting lottery money for Sky money does not work. Does he have an opinion on this? What does he think the balance is on this matter?

Ben Bradshaw: The hon. Gentleman accuses me of asking the Conservative party questions, but, a few weeks before a general election, I think that both the House and the public have some entitlement to know what his party stands for. Its policies are totally confused across the entire responsibilities of this Department, just as they are nationally. Not only his leader, but Opposition Front Benchers wibble and wobble all over the place on policy.  [ Interruption. ] Exactly as my hon. Friends say, their policy changes every day. I simply say to the hon. Gentleman, who, I know, likes taking orders from Sky and Rupert Murdoch, as does his party, that he should be-

Hon. Members: Withdraw!

Mr. Speaker: Order. May I say very gently to the Secretary of State that I am sure that he will now return to the matter of Government policy?

Ben Bradshaw: The hon. Gentleman was asking me about listed events and the impact that listing cricket as an event-for example, the test match home series-might have on community cricket. I think that many hon. Members think that the impact of that has been somewhat exaggerated. I simply gently point out to the hon. Gentleman that, just as he has the concern of a certain broadcaster at heart, millions of people in this country value cricket going back on to free-to-air, terrestrial television. We speak for them; the Conservatives speak for vested interests.

Peter Bone: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: No, not now; after questions.

Julie Kirkbride: In the light of the UK's performance at the winter Olympics, does the Secretary of State wish that we had spent more of our money on elite sporting performance in winter Olympic sports?

Ben Bradshaw: The hon. Lady is rather negative about the UK's performance at the winter Olympics. We actually won our first gold medal in a single event for 30 years-since Robin Cousins-so it was our best performance for several years. But of course, these funding decisions are not taken by Ministers in this Government, although she might like that to be the case under a Conservative Government. We believe in the sports bodies making the decisions about where funding goes. Of course, they will review whether the funding that they put into certain winter Olympic sports represents good value for money, and they will make decisions about future funding based on those talks.

Michael Penning: The Secretary of State was alluding to the 2012 Olympics and the legacy that we will receive from it. Will he inform the House exactly how much the games will cost NHS London? I asked the same question of the Secretary of State for Health the other day, and he indicated that it will be £41 million. [Interruption.] Will this Secretary of State give us the documents, so that we know how much the Olympics will cost NHS London?

Ben Bradshaw: I am afraid that, because of all the noise, I did not hear the specific question, but if the hon. Gentleman will write to me, I will happily write a reply to him.

Mr. Speaker: Order. A little excitement is a good thing; too much excitement is a bad thing. I appeal to hon. Members to be conscious of the way in which we are viewed by people outside the House who regard a lot of raucous noise as pretty undesirable.

Topical Questions

Hugh Bayley: If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

Ben Bradshaw: My Department is responsible for a wide range of policies that support the arts, culture and sport, which are all essential to our nation's sense of well-being and identity, as well as making an invaluable contribution to the British economy.

Hugh Bayley: My right hon. Friend was in York last month, and perhaps he knows that, at the British Museum at the moment, there is an exhibition of some of the greatest treasures from Yorkshire, including the Middleham jewel, the Coppergate helmet and the Ormside bowl. Will the Minister encourage members of the public, particularly Londoners, to go to the British Museum to see what makes York so special, perhaps as a taster to encourage them to go north in the summer and visit the real thing in Yorkshire?

Margaret Hodge: I am delighted that the temporary closure of the Yorkshire museum has made it possible for those jewels in our crown to be exhibited in a room in the British Museum. I encourage everybody to go and see them. The partnership between national and regional museums is hugely important in ensuring that all the country's wealth of artefacts are enjoyed by many more people. It is this Government who, through a renaissance in the regions, have made that partnership possible. That is why it is enormously important that we continue to fund that programme.

Mark Pritchard: Although I am sure the whole House would want to congratulate Amy Williams on winning her gold medal at the winter Olympics, does the Minister believe that the British taxpayer got value for money from those games?

Ben Bradshaw: That sounds like a suggestion that we should not invest in sport. It is not just about the number of medals that people win in competitions, though I repeat what I said to the hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Miss Kirkbride)-that this was the best performance by a British team for many, many years. It is also about all the training, and all the investment that goes into improving people's lives and giving them the opportunity to train for those events. Winning medals is great, but the investment that we put into sport in this country is about far more than just winning medals.
	T3 .

Linda Gilroy: What assessment has my right hon. Friend made of next generation digital access, particularly in a region such as the south-west, which is largely rural? How will he stop people in the south-west becoming second class consumers, citizens and patients?

Ben Bradshaw: My hon. Friend raises an important point, particularly for regions such as ours in the south-west, which are largely rural and bits of which are very sparsely populated-that is, that the free market will not deliver high quality next generation broadband to all those areas. Everybody accepts that, except the Conservative Opposition. That is why we are proposing a very small levy on fixed phone lines-smaller than the amount by which the cost of those lines has decreased in recent years-to help ensure that no one is left out of the digital revolution, and that individuals and businesses in Devon and elsewhere in similar regions can continue to flourish.
	T4 .

Philip Hollobone: According to the Department's website, three quarters of children aged between eight and 15 have a television in their bedrooms. Given the dubious effects of television at best on the development of young minds, their attention spans and school attendance, does the Secretary of State think that is a good thing or a bad thing?

Margaret Hodge: On the whole, the facilities that are enabled by new communication and better communication can have a beneficial impact on children, their educational attainment and their knowledge of the world, but that has to be controlled by parents, in the first instance. Parents play the most important role. If they allow children to have televisions in their own room, I hope they do something to ensure that children do not spend all their time watching television or playing games.

Andrew Miller: Will my right hon. Friend use his influence to do whatever is possible to support the supporters of clubs such as Chester and Portsmouth, who have been so badly let down by financial backers?

Ben Bradshaw: Yes. My hon. Friend raises an important point. There remain some tough questions for the football authorities to address, following the events at Portsmouth and elsewhere-issues of debt and takeovers, and the need to strengthen the financial governance of football. I commend to my hon. Friend the model that my own football club in Exeter uses, which is that of a supporters trust. The club is owned by the fans, and it has no insolvency or debt problems because it does not have any debt. It is democratic, it is a co-operative, and it is a great model of Labourism. That is the sort of model that I would like to see spread throughout the game.

Anne McIntosh: Will the Secretary of State accept that he is plain wrong about the speed of broadband being rolled out to areas in north Yorkshire? The speed is nothing like he claims. Why are we being treated so unfairly and so uncompetitively within the digital broadband economy, compared with the rest of the United Kingdom?

Ben Bradshaw: Forgive me. I was not making claims about current speeds. I was talking about the future in answer to a question about the future. The point that I made was that there is nobody in the industry or the country except the hon. Lady's party who does not believe that there must be some intervention to ensure that constituents exactly like hers get the benefits that those living in urban areas get. We are proposing a solution to deliver high quality fast broadband to her constituency. Her party will not intervene in the market to deliver that. It will leave 30 to 40 per cent. of her householders and her businesses without broadband, and her constituents need to be aware of that.

Tom Watson: Are leaked proposals to close BBC Radio 6 Music and the Asian Network a betrayal of the Reithian principles to support diverse culture creation, or the BBC capitulating to the culture bully boys on the Conservative Front Bench?

Ben Bradshaw: It is rather difficult to know, because one day last week the Opposition broadcast spokesman, the hon. Member for Wantage (Mr. Vaizey), said that he supported the BBC's proposal to close 6 Music and then, two days later, when he was inundated with angry e-mails, he did another U-turn-the third in one week. My hon. Friend makes a very early representation to the consultation that the BBC Trust will have to conduct when it finally comes up with proposals. I would rather comment on those proposals than give a running commentary on leaks.
	T6 .

Paul Rowen: With one premiership football club in administration and several others in hundreds of millions of pounds of debt, what steps will the Secretary of State take to ensure that there is financial probity in football?

Ben Bradshaw: Without repeating too much of what I said in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Andrew Miller), I simply point out to the footballing authorities, which often look to Government to help them resist some of the more draconian proposed regulation from the European Union, that if they want our help on such proposals, they must get their own house in order. We still await the full implementation of the Burns recommendations. Some have been implemented, and we welcome that, but the football authorities need to get a move on. What has happened at Portsmouth should act as a real wake-up call for them to do so.

John Grogan: Further to the question from my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich, East (Mr. Watson), and given that a BBC press release on 15 February said that BBC Radio 6 Music was a distinctive service that did a great deal to fulfil the BBC's public purposes, should not the argument behind any proposal to close 6 Music be examined very carefully, indeed?

Ben Bradshaw: Yes, of course.  [ Interruption. ] No, the question was: should the consultation be very carefully considered? Unlike the hon. Member for Wantage (Mr. Vaizey), I do not give a running commentary on how the BBC should run its affairs. I have said that this is a matter for the BBC; there has been a leak; and we should wait for the full report. There will then have to be a full consultation on that- [ Interruption. ]

Mr. Speaker: Order. I am sorry to interrupt the Secretary of State. The hon. Member for Wantage (Mr. Vaizey) should not witter away from a sedentary position in evident disapproval of the stance taken by occupants of the Treasury Bench. The hon. Gentleman can speak from the Dispatch Box, but he should not speak from his seat.

Ben Bradshaw: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. If the hon. Gentleman has anything useful to say he can get up on his feet and say it. My hon. Friend the Member for Selby (Mr. Grogan) is absolutely right: there must be proper consultation on any proposal that the BBC makes. Of course people will have strong views-there will be those who feel very strongly in favour of that proposal or very strongly in favour of another. I am sure that my hon. Friend, who always shows a very strong interest and has great expertise in the matter, will be central to that consultation.
	T7 .

John Hemming: Given the talk today of major cuts in local government funding, what action will the Government take to protect the crucial library service?

Margaret Hodge: Shortly we will publish our document on the review of, and way forward for, the library service. At the end of the day, local authorities have to take their own decision on funding priorities, but they have a statutory duty to provide a comprehensive and efficient service, and it is up to the Secretary of State to ensure that they do so.

Lindsay Hoyle: Would my colleagues on the Front Bench reaffirm to the good people of Chorley that there will be free swimming lessons for young people and pensioners in the next financial year?

Ben Bradshaw: Yes, and it is very much to be deprecated that, almost exclusively, those local authorities that do not offer free swimming to young people and pensioners are Conservative-controlled.
	T8 .

David Evennett: What steps are being taken to encourage community sports clubs to work more with local schools in order to increase the opportunity for young people to participate more in competitive sport?

Ben Bradshaw: If the hon. Gentleman has not yet visited his local school sports partnership, I suggest that he does so. I am sure that he will be able to discover for himself the amazing work done locally in his constituency between groups of schools and sports clubs and sports organisations to give young people the opportunity to do two hours of quality sport and physical education a week. More than half do three hours of sport a week, but the target is five, and that includes competitive sport. There are more than 3,700 new coaches in schools-new competitive managers, as they are called-specifically to deliver the competitive sport that I am sure the hon. Gentleman wants to see take place. We certainly do.

Rob Marris: Even bearing in mind that Birmingham is the capital of the west midlands region, the city receives far too much Arts Council funding per capita when compared with other towns and cities such as Wolverhampton. What measures can the Minister take to address this outrageous imbalance?

Margaret Hodge: Birmingham's rich cultural infrastructure is of benefit not only to the residents of Birmingham but to residents of the surrounding area. I was delighted that last week Birmingham succeeded in reaching the shortlist for the UK's first city of culture in 2013, and I wish it well in taking that bid forward to the next stage. Of course, we want to see arts and culture spread throughout the country in the best way possible, but this is a matter for the Arts Council. Politicians should not intervene in the distribution of resources to arts and cultural projects-that would be an extremely dangerous road to go down. It is for the Arts Council to decide where it should best place its money.

OLYMPICS

The Minister for the Olympics was asked-

Olympic Legacy (North-West)

Andrew Miller: What legacy is expected for the north-west from the London 2012 Olympics.

Tessa Jowell: The north-west, as with every region in the UK, will gain from sporting, economic and cultural opportunities created by the London 2012 games. Even two and a half years away, 44 north-west businesses have won Olympic contracts-for example, the steel for the Olympic stadium taking shape in the Olympic park is supplied by a Bolton company. There are 45 games-inspired cultural projects across the north-west. There are 65 Olympic and 25 Paralympic pre-games training camps in the north-west, with Thailand, Oceania and the Australian Olympic team already committed to base themselves there. As my hon. Friend will know, the north-west will also host the Olympic football at Old Trafford.

Andrew Miller: I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer. She is aware of the partnership in my area that could lead to a sports village at the Cheshire Oaks complex. May I put on record my thanks to Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson for her magnificent support for that project? Will my right hon. Friend come up and visit to see that project, and to see what she could do to help this development for people in my constituency?

Tessa Jowell: I commend my hon. Friend for the energy that he has put into supporting the development of the Cheshire Oaks sports village; and yes, I would be absolutely delighted to come and see this exemplary new sporting project in his constituency.

Vancouver Winter Olympics

Anthony Steen: What assessment she has made of the lessons to be learned from the Vancouver 2010 winter Olympics for the London 2012 Olympics.

Tessa Jowell: Once again, the whole House will want to congratulate Amy Williams on her gold medal in the skeleton bob. The celebrations continue in Cambridge and in Bath, where she trained.
	While in Vancouver, I had a full programme of meetings, and I am happy to place a list of these in the Libraries of both Houses. The value of those meetings is that they provided real-time opportunity to discuss a number of issues related to city operation of the games and security. I know that the hon. Gentleman will be particularly interested in the time that I spent considering the risk of an increase in human trafficking associated with the Olympic games, and I worked closely with the security services and police officials at federal, district and city level on that. I have met representatives of non-governmental organisations in Vancouver and here, since I returned. We will in due course publish a proper debrief on the Olympic and the Paralympic games.

Anthony Steen: Given that all major sporting events attract an increase in criminal activity, and in view of the fact that the Metropolitan police have said that there are already new indications that criminal activity in east London is increasing, two years before the Olympics, will the Minister consider a major poster campaign on all London buses, on the underground and on sites, to highlight the fact that Britain is no longer a welcome place for human trafficking and to ensure that human traffickers realise that they are no longer welcome in Britain?

Tessa Jowell: rose-

Mr. Speaker: Order. We do need briefer questions and pithy answers.

Tessa Jowell: The hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct in his last point, and the focus of all the meetings, visits and engagement that I have had on the issue has been that we want to send a signal to traffickers and criminals from around the world that London will not welcome them in the run-up to the 2012 games. The hon. Gentleman should reflect, as I know he does, on the complexity of the matter. No simple conclusions should be drawn, and we are ensuring that we mitigate the risks.

Tom Brake: Cheap ticket prices were fundamental to the success of Vancouver, allowing real sports fans to attend and witness the superb success of Amy Williams from Bath. Some 50,000 free tickets were issued, and 100,000 were issued at less than £16. Equivalent figures in London would be 300,000 free tickets and 600,000 below £16. How many cheap and free tickets does the Minister expect to be issued for London 2012?

Tessa Jowell: The hon. Gentleman knows that I am enormously concerned about ensuring that families with children from right around the country can afford to come to the games, and that tickets are affordable for Londoners. The pricing of tickets is, however, a matter for the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games, which will make announcements about it later this year. I am quite sure that it will listen to the messages that are coming loud and clear from the House about the importance of affordability.

Hugh Robertson: May I add my congratulations to Amy Williams on her gold medal? That is a fantastic way to end Olympic questions for this Parliament. However, her achievement should not disguise the fact that we under-shot the Government's UK Sport medal target of three; that Snowsport GB, the governing body responsible for snow sports, went into receivership on the eve of the games; and that at a time when we have successfully raised more than £600 million of sponsorship for London 2012, despite the £6 million of lottery and Exchequer funding that has gone into winter sports we have not attracted a major sponsor into that area. As we move forward to the Sochi Olympics-

Mr. Speaker: Order. May I just gently say to the hon. Gentleman that there are other questioners on the Order Paper? I hope that he will bring himself to a question very quickly.

Hugh Robertson: I was actually just going to finish by asking whether, given all those factors, the Minister now feels it is time for a fundamental review of where we are going with winter sports before Sochi.

Tessa Jowell: I do not want anything to detract from Amy Williams's gold medal or the significant number of top 10 finishes that our athletes had, and nobody in the House should talk down the efforts of team GB, every single member of which deserves our congratulation. It is worth noting that investment in winter sport doubled between Salt Lake City and Vancouver, from £3 million to £6 million for the same number of athletes. I am quite sure that UK Sport, as the responsible body, will want to review progress and the funding strategy.

Olympic Legacy

David Evennett: What recent progress has been made in the development of legacy plans for the London 2012 Olympics.

Tessa Jowell: London 2012 will be the first legacy Olympics. We made two pledges when we won the games in Singapore: to transform a generation of young people through sport, and to regenerate east London. On sport, 10 years of investment will mean that by 2012, 60 per cent. of young people will spend five hours a week on sport and competing, up from 23 per cent. doing two hours of sport a week in state schools in 2002. The regeneration of east London is there for all to see, so those are two legacy promises made and two legacy promises delivered.

David Evennett: I thank the Minister for her response. In my borough of Bexley, we are all passionate supporters of the London Olympics. Regrettably, however, no Olympic events are to be held in my borough. What does the Minister see as the lasting legacy for outer-London boroughs such as Bexley?

Tessa Jowell: Well, I think outer-London boroughs such as Bexley could start by taking up free swimming for children under 16 and people over 60.

Apprenticeships (Olympic Park Site)

Tom Clarke: How many apprenticeships are available at the Olympic park site.

Tessa Jowell: Some 350 apprenticeship places will be created on the Olympic park and village by 2012- 3 per cent. of the work force, and more than three times the industry norm for the south-east. The latest figures show that there were 150 apprentices on site in December 2009, 56 of whom were from the host boroughs. The Olympic Delivery Authority and its partners are on track to increase that number to 180 apprentices in 2010.

Tom Clarke: Would my right hon. Friend care to relate those figures to what she said about the norm for British industry, and will she tell us how they impact on the five host boroughs?

Tessa Jowell: Those apprenticeship places are a very important part of contributing to the skills legacy for the Olympic park-the 350 places will represent 3 per cent. of the work force at its peak, as I indicated. We also welcome the fact that the construction skills academy, which is now relocated at Beckton, will continue after the games, providing a young, skilled work force, including increasing numbers of women, to the construction industry in London and beyond, which is important once the Olympics are completed and as we move towards the construction of Crossrail.

Vancouver Winter Olympics

Philip Hollobone: What assessment she has made of the lessons to be learned from the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics for the London 2012 Olympics.

Tessa Jowell: I hope I have dealt with the question of the lessons learnt from the Vancouver Olympics, both on construction and legacy. As I indicated earlier, a full report will be prepared in due course.

Philip Hollobone: One success of the Vancouver games appears to have been the provision of large screens in public parks, whereby very large numbers of people could watch the activities taking place on the slopes. What lessons will the Government draw from that successful experience for London 2012?

Tessa Jowell: The lessons will be to have-right across the country-large screens, live sites, volunteers, and activity locally through the cultural Olympiad, sporting events and so forth, so that there really is a sense of Olympic celebration right across the UK, and so that people are able, wherever they live, to have first-hand experience of the games.

Points of Order

Peter Bone: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. During Question Time the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport made an accusation that I took orders from Sky and Murdoch. That is a most extraordinary accusation. I have been in Parliament for five years, and I have never taken orders from anybody. I would have hoped that the Secretary of State would apologise, but he did not take the opportunity to do so. Can you suggest how I pursue an apology, Mr. Speaker?

Mr. Speaker: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. He has placed his views and concerns very firmly on the record, and I listened carefully to what was said. Although I was mindful of our prohibition on imputing false motives, I think that in this case it was a matter of taste rather than of order.
	The Secretary of State is here. If he wishes to respond- [ Interruption. ] Order. If the right hon. Gentleman wishes to respond, he is free to do so- [ Interruption ]-but he is under no obligation to do so.

Ben Bradshaw: indicated dissent.

Mr. Speaker: The Secretary of State does not wish to apologise. So be it.  [ Interruption. ] Order. The House is getting a little over-excited. The hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) is getting very worked up, and I am quite worried about him. I do not want his health to suffer by him getting overly worked-up-that would be bad for The Wrekin, bad for the House and bad for the nation. We do not want that to happen, so we will move on to the next point of order, which comes from Dr. Spink.

Bob Spink: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Many hon. Members will have to fight an election soon in which tainted Ashcroft money has been used, perhaps unfairly, to buy votes against them. Are you aware of any opportunity for the House to debate that very worrying matter, which hits at the very heart of our democracy and the concept of fair play?

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman is an experienced Member of the House, and he knows that the scheduling of business, the timetabling of debate and the question of which debates take place are not matters for me. He is a perspicacious fellow, and he knows that he can of course raise the matter at business questions if he wishes to do so. As for the issue being debated, although what we have just heard certainly did not represent a full-scale debate, the hon. Gentleman has left his constituents in no doubt about his views on this important matter.

Christopher Chope: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Last Tuesday you made an important statement about new rules for petitions, beginning today. I will have the honour later this evening to present the first such petition, organised by Cassian Horowitz on behalf of hundreds of staff against the closure of Bellamy's bar. In your statement, you said:
	The right to petition Parliament is one of our oldest and most cherished...traditions. The changes...will refresh and improve an important democratic mechanism.-[ Official Report, 23 February 2010; Vol. 506, c. 163.]
	It has been drawn to my attention, however, that the departmental Communications Officer of the Department of Facilities sent an email to staff on Friday saying that they should express their views through their line manager-and, by implication, not sign the petition. Please, Mr. Speaker, will you confirm that the democratic right to petition Parliament extends to all the staff working in Parliament, and that they are free to sign the petition without fear of victimisation?

Mr. Speaker: This is not a proper matter to be aired extensively on the Floor of the House. I will make inquiries, but what I will say to the hon. Gentleman-I do not think that he has ever accused me of ducking a matter, and I do not wish to give him the opportunity to do so on this occasion-is that he has made his point extremely forcefully- [ Interruption. ] Order. I stand by what I said about the right to petition. I will look further into this matter and the very particular charge-or criticism-that he makes, but it is perfectly proper that he should air his concern. Now is not the time for a general debate about it on the Floor of the House.

Robert Key: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I remind you that the very first recorded petition to Parliament came from my constituency? It was dropped from a horse and found on Salisbury plain. It was eventually brought to the House of Commons, where it was considered by the House-and burnt.

Mr. Speaker: I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who is in his 27th year as a Member of the House. He will therefore know that what he has just said is most certainly not a point of order, but it would be widely regarded as a point of enlightenment, and we are grateful to him.

BILLS PRESENTED
	  
	Bilingual Juries (Wales)

Presentation (Standing Order No. 57)
	Hywel Williams presented a Bill to amend section 10 of the Juries Act 1974 to provide that in certain cases all members of a jury be bilingual in Welsh and English; and for connected purposes.
	 Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 23 April, and to be printed (Bill 75).

Registration of Births and Deaths (Welsh Language)

Presentation (Standing Order No. 57)
	Hywel Williams presented a Bill to make provision about the registration of births and deaths where particulars are given in Welsh and English; to permit certificates of particulars of entries of registers of births and deaths to be in Welsh or English only in such circumstances; and for connected purposes.
	 Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 23 April, and to be printed (Bill 76).

Prosecution of Offences Act 1985 (Amendment)

Presentation (Standing Order No. 57)
	Mr. Andrew Dismore presented a Bill to amend the Prosecution of Offences Act 1985; and for connected purposes.
	 Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 5 March, and to be printed (Bill 77).

Opposition Day
	  
	[4th Allotted Day-First Part]

Defence

Mr. Speaker: I advise the House that I have selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.

Liam Fox: I beg to move,
	That this House expresses its continued support for HM armed forces personnel and their families; notes that over 440 service personnel have been killed on operations in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001; further notes that the armed forces have operated over the original planning assumptions for years; regrets that there has not been a Strategic Defence Review (SDR) since 1998; believes that the 1998 SDR was never fully funded and failed to provide proper equipment for the Iraq war; recognises that the Government failed to plan for post-conflict reconstruction in Iraq; further recognises the cut to the helicopter budget by £1.4 billion in 2004; is concerned about the cuts to the frigate and destroyer fleet from the 32 recommended in the 1998 SDR 10 to 23; is further concerned by the failure to provide the Royal Air Force with a modern troop transport and air-to-air refuelling fleet; believes that the Government has presided over a failed procurement process; further believes that the Government has failed properly to fund the armed forces for wartime operations; and calls on the Government to acknowledge its failure to honour the Military Covenant.
	At the beginning of this debate, our thoughts and prayers are very much with the families and friends of Sergeant Paul Fox, Rifleman Martin Kinggett and Senior Aircraftman Luke Southgate, who have all given their lives in the service of their country in the past week. The sadness that we share with their families is mixed-correctly-with pride in their courage and devotion to their country.
	With the 1998 strategic defence review, new Labour got off to a relatively good start with the armed forces. The 1998 SDR was a well-respected document. Moreover, it used a foreign policy baseline, not a Treasury baseline, as many of its predecessors had done. That was, and is, the right way of conducting such a review. However, the failure to have a review for more than 12 years means that our armed forces-as well as Government across Whitehall, for that matter-have failed fully to adapt to the increasingly changing global security situation.
	The events of 9/11 fundamentally changed the international security environment, while the aftermath of Iraq made the planning assumptions of the SDR largely obsolete. Looking back, we can also see that the review's ambitions were never fully matched with funding. That has meant that for 12 years our armed forces have been operating well beyond what they were resourced to do. The truth is that the current Prime Minister as Chancellor was never willing fully to fund Tony Blair's wars, and that same sad story has been retold time and time again during the Chilcot inquiry.
	As the right hon. Member for Ashfield (Mr. Hoon) stated in his evidence, within the Ministry of Defence
	there was quite a strong feeling
	that the 1998 strategic defence review
	was not fully funded,
	and that
	in the subsequent CSR programmes we asked for significantly more money than we eventually received.
	Sir Kevin Tebbit said that as permanent secretary he had to operate a permanent crisis budget. Former Chief of the Defence Staff Lord Walker said that the SDR was underfunded by well into £1 billion.
	In one of his many moving farewell speeches, in one of the final pieces of spin of his premiership, Tony Blair said that defence spending had remained broadly stable, at 2.5 per cent. of GDP, if we take into account Iraq and Afghanistan. In other words, much of the burden of the cost of Iraq and Afghanistan was being carried by the core defence budget. The truth is that the Ministry of Defence was effectively fighting two wars on a peacetime budget.
	The Treasury's unwillingness fully to fund the MOD's 1998 SDR meant that there were big losers across defence and a degradation of our capability. Let us look just at the Royal Navy. Time and time again since the 1998 SDR, the Navy has been blackmailed into accepting cuts to its fleet, to ensure the eventual addition of two new carriers. During the 1998 SDR process, the Navy agreed to cut its fleet of 12 attack submarines to 10, and its fleet of 35 destroyers and frigates to 32, in return for the promise of the two carriers. A decade later we find our Navy with only eight attack submarines, with a possible future reduction to only six or seven, and 22 -an astonishingly low number-of destroyers and frigates. Maritime commitments have not decreased since 1998 but have risen, at a time when our Navy has been slashed, mothballed and, in some cases, sold off. There is a similar pattern to be found across all three services, including the reserves.

Ian Davidson: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Liam Fox: I will in a moment.
	The Government's failure fully to fund their SDR is only one item in a long litany of failures. The true story behind the invasion of Iraq is now being told. I am sure that the whole country is looking forward to the Prime Minister's evidence this Friday, but what we already know is quite shocking. Not only did the Government fail to plan properly for the post-conflict period in Iraq, but it is now well known that what most of us suspected all along is true: that troops were sent into Iraq without proper equipment. We now know that during the early planning phases of the Iraq war, the then Chief of the Defence Staff, Lord Boyce, was blocked by the then Defence Secretary from organising crucial logistics, in case it sent the wrong political message: that we were preparing for war. In the words of Lord Boyce,
	I was not allowed to speak, for example, to the Chief of Defence Logistics-I was prevented from doing that by the Secretary of State for Defence, because of the concern about it becoming public knowledge that we were planning for a military contribution which might...be...unhelpful in the activity...in the United Nations to secure
	a Security Council resolution.

Doug Henderson: I understand that Opposition parties have to try to point out shortcomings, but does the hon. Gentleman accept that defence, like other public expenditure, is a matter of choice, that as the world changes the choices have to change, and that if we want to spend more on things such as unmanned aerial vehicles and intelligence, we have to think about what we are going to spend less on?

Liam Fox: That is a statement of the obvious. I will come in a moment to the economic backdrop against which future decisions will have to be made.
	The point that I am making is that we now know that troops were sent into harm's way in Iraq, without the proper equipment, for political reasons. Sending troops into harm's way without the proper kit for domestic reasons is a serious breach of the military covenant.

Ian Davidson: May I go back to the point that the hon. Gentleman was making when I sought to intervene on him? He was speaking movingly about the shortfalls affecting the Navy. Is it true that the first act of a Conservative Government would be, as he said to the convenors of the shipyard unions only last week, to examine the break clauses in the aircraft carrier contract?

Liam Fox: It would be the act of any sensible incoming Government to look at the unavoidable costs in any project that the previous Government had committed them to-[Hon. Members: Ah!] That is a sensible thing to do. If we are going to go ahead with some of the essential projects required for the country's military and diplomatic prowess, we will need to be able to look at what the costs are going to be across all Government programmes. That is exactly the point that the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, North (Mr. Henderson) made a moment ago.
	One would have thought that the Government had learnt enough, following their failures in Iraq, to ensure that we were prepared for our mission in Afghanistan, but again they failed to understand the situation and sent our forces into a hornets' nest, without the proper resources to carry out what they were being asked to do. An Army board of inquiry into the death of Captain James Phillipson in 2006 found that there had been delays in the delivery of basic equipment, partly because
	The MOD and the Treasury were unwilling to commit funds to urgent operational requirements enhancements prior to any formal political announcement.
	The Government were sleepwalking into the early stages of our engagement in Helmand province by sending only an initial 3,500 troops. The brigade commander in 2006, Brigadier Ed Butler, has made it clear that that number of soldiers was deployed as a result of a Treasury-imposed cap, and not as part of an objective analysis of the situation on the ground.
	The shortage of key equipment in Helmand-especially helicopters, as has been well documented-has in part led to a number of high-profile military resignations, including those of Colonel Stuart Tootal, Brigadier Ed Butler, Major Sebastian Morley and Major-General Andrew Mackay.

Claire Curtis-Thomas: The hon. Gentleman will recall that the mandate to go into Iraq was secured in this House. Prior to that, no activity could take place at ministerial level, or within Government Departments, that would suggest that we were going to go into Iraq, for fear of presuming on the House. He will also know that some 23,000 items were required to be deployed as part of personnel security. Does he not understand that although the intention to deliver is there, it is sometimes not logistically possible to do so?

Liam Fox: I simply do not accept that point. Sensible contingency planning ought to have been taking place. It was not that the equipment was unavailable or that it could not be ordered; it was specifically not ordered because that would have sent a specific political signal. That is where the moral culpability of the Government lies.
	Perhaps the Government's biggest failure in their conduct of defence is their mismanagement of the equipment programme. The defence and security of the country is increasingly being run on a wing and a prayer, and as the money has failed to materialise for the unfunded projects, they have been delayed and delayed, with the taxpayer left to foot the bill and the military left to ponder their absent capabilities. The default position should be that we spend to save, rather than that we delay to spend. Speedy procurement ultimately saves money, but the Government have too often failed to understand that.
	Unfortunately, if half of what was reported in the Gray review is true, the next Government will have not only the task of balancing defence priorities between the conflict that we face today and the wars of tomorrow, but the challenge of putting the MOD's finances back on track after a decade of mismanagement and neglect. The Labour Government came to power with a promise to introduce smart procurement, which would deliver equipment faster, better and more cheaply. Nothing could be further from the truth, however.
	None of us knows exactly when the election will come; there have been rumours that it could be announced today, but personally I doubt it, because if the Prime Minister were any more of a serial bottler, he could start a factory. But whenever the election comes, the Government in office after it will find themselves with a military that is overstretched, undermanned and in possession of worn-out equipment.
	We know that the equipment programme is underfunded-by exactly how much is anybody's guess, but most estimates put it at billions of pounds. Bernard Gray, the Government's own analyst, placed the figure at £16 billion over the next 10 years, which equates to an unfunded liability of some £4.4 million a day. The plunging value of the pound, which we have seen again today, has left an estimated £1.3 billion black hole in Britain's defence budget.
	According to the most recent figures available from the National Audit Office, the top 15 major procurement projects are £4.5 billion over budget and delayed by a total of 339 months. The A400M aircraft is £657 million over budget and will be delayed by 82 months. The Type 45 destroyer is £1.5 billion over budget and will be delayed by 38 months. The aircraft carriers are more than £1 billion over budget already, and the service entry date for the first carrier has been delayed from 2012 to 2016. The decision in 2004 to cut the helicopter budget by £1.4 billion-in the middle of two wars-was inexcusable, irresponsible and irreconcilable with the basic duty to maximise the safety of our troops while carrying out a dangerous mission. In the words of the former Defence Secretary, the right hon. Member for Ashfield, to the Chilcot inquiry,
	had that budget been spent in the way that we thought we should spend it, then those helicopters would probably be coming into service any time now.
	Due to this failed procurement programme, billions of pounds have been needlessly wasted-money that could have gone into equipping our front-line troops.
	The Ministry of Defence's record of waste is staggering, as £2.5 billion has been spent on external consultants, but it could not find £20 million to train the Territorial Army. Furthermore, £2.3 billion was spent refurbishing the MOD, but it could not find £4 million for officer training corps training.

Linda Gilroy: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Liam Fox: I will give way in a few moments.
	A further £6.6 billion was wasted on account of lost equipment, including among other things 3,938 Bowman radios and an untold number of laptops. Another £113 million was wasted on a super hangar for fast jet repair that was never used, while £118 million was wasted on armoured vehicle cancellations, £8 million was lost on cancelled training courses and almost £250,000 lost on works of art to hang on the walls of main building. How can all that be allowed to happen? It is a picture of serial incompetence and a lack of grip by Ministers on the Department.

Linda Gilroy: Will the hon. Gentleman tell the House what the cumulative efficiency savings have been in each of the comprehensive spending review periods from 2001 onwards?

Liam Fox: No, I do not have those figures, but I look forward to being enlightened about them when the hon. Lady speaks.
	New Labour's deluded belief that we can all live beyond our means indefinitely has produced an economic train crash whose effects will be felt for a generation. The enduring legacy of new Labour's brand of socialism has been to saddle us with cradle to grave debt. When they leave office, they will not only have failed in their duty to support our armed forces properly in conflict, but the economic calamity they leave in their wake will make the task of rebuilding our security in a dangerous world all the more difficult.
	Put simply, Mr. Speaker, it can't go on like this. Our armed forces cannot take another five years of Labour. The damage this Government have done to our armed forces will take years to put right, and will limit our ability to react to the unexpected for years to come. It should come as no surprise that the Government's decade of neglect simply reflects the way in which their leadership view defence. We have had individual Defence Secretaries, including the current one, who have been both competent and committed to the armed forces, but we have had four Defence Secretaries in four years, one of whom was part-time, even though we were heavily engaged in combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
	Besides using the armed forces as props in a photo shoot, the Prime Minister himself has never shown much interest in the armed forces. The former Chief of the Defence Staff, Lord Guthrie, described the Prime Minister as
	the most unsympathetic Chancellor of the Exchequer, as far as defence was concerned.
	We now know that in 2004 the service chiefs came close to resigning en masse.
	The Prime Minister's instinctive lack of interest in the armed forces has been compounded by incompetent procurement and failure fully to fund the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Inevitably, that has resulted in a weakening of the military covenant, with many in the armed forces feeling undervalued. Perhaps we should have known that when, back in 2000, Lord Mandelson described the Brigade of Guards as
	a lot of chinless wonders marching round Horseguards Parade doing incomprehensible things with flags.
	Since 2001, 63 members of the Household Division have given their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan. That senior members of the Government should even think like Lord Mandelson is chilling, and I doubt that any member of the Government Front Bench could defend those views today.
	Our armed forces are, in the words of the Leader of the Opposition, the best of British. That is why the words of the Chief of the General Staff in his recent memorandum echo so resonantly:
	my greatest concern...is the deteriorating experience of soldiers and their families in the period between tours which, the team reports, is disaffecting attitudes, damaging morale and risks undermining our ability to sustain the campaign over the next years. We need our soldiers to be ready, mentally and physically, to endure repeated tours in Afghanistan in a harsh environment, with the real prospect of significant casualties each time. To maintain the necessary morale and cohesion they must see tangible signs between tours that they and their families are valued.
	That is it: our armed forces need to be valued.
	Labour has had 13 years, and in that time has failed to understand the value, the essence and the importance of the military covenant. It is a dangerous world, and this Government are tired. The Ministry of Defence and our armed forces need a new vision and a new life, which only a new Government will have the energy to provide.

Bob Ainsworth: I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from 2001 to end and add:
	pays tribute to their sacrifice; believes that the 1998 Strategic Defence Review (SDR) and the updates that followed the September 2001 attacks on the US have provided a robust policy foundation for the modernisation of Britain's armed forces that has enabled them to take on successfully the many challenges they have faced over the past decade, including the major operations in Iraq and Afghanistan; notes that the Ministry of Defence has brought into service 31 new ships, 63 new multi-role fast jets, six large transport aircraft and 171 new helicopters and provided the Army with a wide range of new equipment it has required to succeed on operations; recognises that the defence budget has grown by more than 10 per cent. in real terms since the SDR and that an additional £14 billion has been provided by the Reserve for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan; and welcomes the steps that have been taken substantially to improve support, medical and welfare services for the armed forces.
	I am sure the whole House will wish to join me in paying tribute, as the hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox) did, to those who have lost their lives in Afghanistan in recent days: Senior Aircraftman Luke Southgate of II Squadron Royal Air Force Regiment, Rifleman Martin Kinggett of 4th Battalion The Rifles, and Sergeant Paul Fox of 28 Engineer Regiment. They and, indeed, all who have lost their lives in operations in the Balkans, Sierra Leone, Iraq, Afghanistan or closer to home in Northern Ireland, deserve the gratitude of the entire nation. Their families and their friends are in our thoughts. I have the utmost admiration for the bravery and professionalism, and the selfless commitment to duty, of our armed forces: they show that day in and day out.
	I listened closely to the hon. Gentleman. At a time when our armed forces are engaged in dangerous operations that are crucial to this country's national security and international stability more widely, it is important for us to ensure that defence is widely debated. That is why I find it disappointing that the Conservatives want only to look backwards. Perhaps that is because of their lack of clarity on their own policies for the future.
	The strategic defence review of 1998, and the updates that followed in 2002 and 2003, modernised our armed forces to enable them to take on successfully the many challenges that they have faced over the last decade. The Conservatives supported every major operation since the strategic defence review, and they were right to do so. I must say to them, however, that it is not possible to will the ends, oppose all the means and try to score political points with the benefit of hindsight without proposing anything different. That is not a responsible approach to opposition.
	Let us take Afghanistan. The Conservatives agree with us about the need to be there. They agree with the military and political strategy that the Government are pursuing. They have supported each deployment of further troops. They have supported the increase in funding of equipment and support for personnel in theatre.  [ Interruption. ] If the hon. Member for Congleton (Ann Winterton) disagrees, she disagrees with her party's Front Bench and not with me. They agree that we can succeed. They agree that we cannot put a limit on how long this will take. Yet the hon. Member for Woodspring tries to score political points about equipment, publicly accusing the Government of betraying our troops without even checking his facts. He claimed that Ridgback armoured vehicles were stranded in Dubai for lack of airlift to take them into theatre when, in reality, those vehicles were being sent to Afghanistan ahead of schedule. False claims do not just damage the Government; they risk damaging the morale of our troops and the public, and they also risk damaging the mission. Let me set the record straight, and I challenge the Conservatives-

Liam Fox: rose-

Bob Ainsworth: I will give way to the hon. Gentleman in a moment. I challenge the Conservatives to say what they would do differently. I will give way to the hon. Gentleman now, if he stands up and tells us what he would do differently. Going forward-not going back-what would he do differently?

Liam Fox: Any strategic defence review has to be fully funded. Therefore, any SDR that a future Government would decide on would be fully funded; it would be irresponsible not to do that. Can the Secretary of State tell us whether, on the Government record, it is true that the Government cut the helicopter budget by £1.4 billion in 2004, in the middle of two wars?

Bob Ainsworth: I was about to come on to the Government's record. It is a record of which the Government can be proud, and the facts are as follows. First, operations are not funded from the core defence budget. By the end of 2008-09, the Treasury reserve contributed more than £14 billion to fund operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. We estimate that a further £4.5 billion will be provided this financial year, and we expect the reserve to contribute some £5 billion to the cost of operations in Afghanistan in the next financial year. More widely, compared with 1997, we now have armed forces that are more capable and better equipped, and successfully working together. To achieve that, we have had to invest more to get more. Since the 1998 defence budget, the budget has grown by more than 10 per cent. in real terms-that is aside from the commitment from the reserve-and there has been the longest period of sustained growth since the 1980s, which is in marked contrast to the situation in the 1990s, when, under a Conservative Government, the defence budget decreased substantially. The defence budget will be some £35.4 billion this financial year, rising to £36.9 billion in 2010-11. We have ring-fenced that increase next year, again in marked contrast to the Conservative party, which has refused to guarantee that the defence budget will be safe from the axe in their proposed autumn Budget.

Julian Lewis: rose-

Bob Ainsworth: I will give way to the hon. Gentleman if he is going to stand up now and tell us whether the defence budget will be safe from the axe in his party's proposed autumn Budget.

Julian Lewis: It is very kind of the right hon. Gentleman to give way, but when I try to intervene it is because I want to ask him questions, not because I intend to answer any he might wish to put. The question I wish to put to him is this: does he, or does he not, accept that if any money that is forthcoming from a Treasury reserve budget in order to fight wars is added to the core budget, yet the proportion is still only 2.5 per cent. of GDP, it is no good the Secretary of State saying the Government are funding the wars separately if the overall peacetime defence budget as a proportion of GDP is remaining the same? The Secretary of State is giving with one hand and taking away with the other, and he is not fully funding the wars that he undertook.

Bob Ainsworth: That is not the case, and the hon. Gentleman is aware of his sleight of hand here. We are talking about a period of substantial growth, and the facts are as follows. The defence budget grew by 10 per cent. in real terms additional to the £14 billion from the reserve. He knows those facts to be true, yet he tries to suggest they are not.

Angus Robertson: Given what the Secretary of State has just said, can he explain why, according to the Ministry of Defence's own statistics, there has been a £4.3 billion underspend in Scotland in recent years?

Bob Ainsworth: May I say to the hon. Gentleman that, much to his annoyance, defence is a UK-wide activity? He would like to stop that arrangement, but I am opposed to its being stopped as I believe in the United Kingdom, and I see defence as a whole. I know that he would like to do something different and that under any Scottish nationalist regime defence would be slashed to the bone, at great cost to the people of Scotland.
	We recognise that we also need to continue to improve how we use our resources. We are aiming to deliver efficiency savings of more than £3 billion over the current spending review period and we are also working to ensure that we get the maximum value for the resources that we spend on buying and maintaining equipment. Defence acquisition is a complex and expensive business that all nations find difficult. Despite shortcomings, our acquisition system compares favourably with those of our allies, and we have already made considerable improvements on the system that we inherited in 1997. Nevertheless, significant cost pressures on the defence budget exist, which is why the Government have examined how we can make further improvements to defence acquisition, including through regular defence reviews, improved transparency and indicative 10-year budgets.
	We should not forget that over the past 12 years very substantial investment in defence has enabled us to provide the equipment and support required to conduct today's operations overseas and to prepare for the future, and I wish to set that out. For Afghanistan, 1,700 new vehicles have been supplied since 2006; we have doubled the number of helicopters in theatre since November 2006; we have more than doubled the number of helicopter hours available to commanders; more than £100 million has been provided for the Counter-Improvised Explosive Device Task Force; there has been a doubling of the Reaper drone capability; an additional C-17 aircraft has been supplied to strengthen the air bridge and improvements have been made to the Hercules fleet; and 22 new Chinook helicopters are on order, with the first 10 set to arrive during 2012-13.

Mark Pritchard: rose-

Peter Tapsell: rose-

Bob Ainsworth: I shall give way in just a moment. The individual soldier in Afghanistan is better equipped than ever before. Our soldiers are fighting in dangerous circumstances in Helmand with great success, and few other nations can do the same. For defence as a whole, we have made significant strides forward. We have brought into service-

Mark Pritchard: rose-

Bob Ainsworth: I hope that the hon. Gentleman would like to hear the list. We have brought into service more than 170 new helicopters, including the hugely impressive Apache attack helicopter; six new giant transport aircraft; 63 multi-role Typhoon aircraft; and 31 new warships. The first of the six new Type 45 destroyers will enter service later this year and will provide a step change in capability.

Several hon. Members: rose -

Bob Ainsworth: I will give way in a moment. Looking forward, we have taken steps to maintain the armed forces at the forefront of air power with our commitment to the joint strike fighter. Work on the two new aircraft carriers is proceeding well. I challenge the hon. Member for Woodspring to set out his party's position on the carriers so as to provide clarity-he can do so now if he wishes; let us hear what his party's position is on those. Has the shadow Chancellor prevented him from doing so?

Several hon. Members: rose -

Bob Ainsworth: I shall give way to the hon. Member for Louth and Horncastle (Sir Peter Tapsell), as perhaps he can tell us his views on the carriers.

Peter Tapsell: I am intervening on the Afghanistan point that the Secretary of State has just made. Given the enormous commitment of material and money to Afghanistan that he has just outlined, is it not an extraordinary example of the fundamental misjudgment that the Government made on the seriousness of the commitment that they sent in 3,300 troops in 2006 and the Secretary of State of the day stated that he hoped they would get in and out without firing a shot? The Government completely misread the strategic task that they were undertaking.

Bob Ainsworth: I ask the hon. Gentleman to look at the record, because I was sitting in the House at the time when those comments were made. The then Secretary of State sent 16 Air Assault Brigade south-people do not send 16 Air Assault Brigade south without some serious intent. My right hon. Friend the then Secretary of State knew that southern Helmand was a dangerous area.

Several hon. Members: rose -

Bob Ainsworth: I shall give way to the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard). Perhaps he can enlighten us on the position held by the hon. Member for Woodspring on the two new carriers.

Mark Pritchard: I am grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way. He is a reasonable man. Does he agree with me that it is completely unacceptable when troops are returning from the front line in Afghanistan that they should be delayed unnecessarily, not because of bad weather but because of problems with ageing, old airframes delayed in Cyprus? That time is taken away from time at home with their loved ones. I have had a constituent this week in tears, saying, I want my husband home and he is delayed in Cyprus. It is not good enough.

Bob Ainsworth: We have, from time to time, problems with the air bridge. There is no doubt about that. We do everything that we can to minimise those problems and the RAF seeks, all the time, to make the air bridge as robust as possible, but delays are caused and they cause distress. We have invested in new aircraft to try to minimise those delays, such as the new C-17 that I ordered in December, which will give a new added robustness to the air bridge for Afghanistan.

Jim Sheridan: May I take my right hon. Friend back to the question of commitment and remind him that the tooth fairy does not deliver equipment-it has to be manufactured and, we hope, manufactured in this country? As a defence worker during the late '80s and '90s, I well recall the thousands of people who were made redundant by the Conservatives. They cut projects and cut orders and thousands of people lost their jobs. My right hon. Friend would be well advised not to take advice on cuts from the Opposition.

Bob Ainsworth: I agree with my hon. Friend. That is why I tried to elicit an answer to the question of the carriers, just as an indication of wider issues that there might be-

Liam Fox: rose-

Bob Ainsworth: Aha! It has taken a while, but now there will be a response on the Conservative party's position on the carriers.

Liam Fox: Patience is its own reward. We have always made very clear our arguments about seaborne air power projection. It would be perfectly reasonable to expect the carrier programme to continue under another Government, unless there were strong reasons in a strategic defence review for it not to. It is therefore impossible to exempt any programme. Now that I have clarified our position, will the Secretary of State tell us for the sake of clarity whether the Government will exempt the carrier programme from their proposed SDR?

Bob Ainsworth: If that was clarity, it was about as clear as mud. We waited a long time, but clarity came there none.

Andrew Pelling: I am sorry to disrupt the dialogue, which should obviously be encouraged-the Secretary of State is taking a justifiably pugnacious approach-but may I ask this question? Obviously, extra equipment improves morale, but could morale also be improved if Ministers attended when fallen heroes return to this country?

Bob Ainsworth: If the hon. Gentleman means the ceremonies at Wootton Bassett, I have to say to him that I find myself in as difficult a position as anybody. If we attend one, how many do we attend? We are also repeatedly advised, as Ministers, that these are military occasions and that we should confine ourselves to attending proper commemorative occasions when they are called-there have been a few and there should be as many as required-for our services as a whole. I do not see how we can go to one and then not another. I get grief about this all the time-people misunderstand the reasons why we are not constantly at Wootton Bassett watching the coffins return. We simply cannot play politics with a very serious, solemn occasion that is there to provide the families, overwhelmingly, with an opportunity to accept their lost loved one back into their arms.

Julian Lewis: Will the Secretary of State give way?

Bob Ainsworth: I would like to make some progress, if I can-

James Arbuthnot: Will the Secretary of State give way?

Bob Ainsworth: I shall have to give way to the right hon. Gentleman.

James Arbuthnot: I am most grateful. I think I must be having a bit of difficulty, because I heard my hon. Friend the Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox) ask whether the carriers would be exempted from the strategic defence review. The Secretary of State has been demanding clarity from my hon. Friend; I think that it is only fair for him to give the same to us.

Bob Ainsworth: The right hon. Gentleman will also have heard the hon. Member for Woodspring say that he had provided clarity, but when the right hon. Gentleman looks at the record, he will see that clarity came there none. Instead, there has been a mealy-mouthed response. The Opposition are attempting to look backwards because they are frightened to say what the consequences of their proposals would be, looking forward.

Several hon. Members: rose -

Bob Ainsworth: I shall not give way because I would like to make some progress. I shall try to give way a little later.
	I want to move on to welfare, because the hon. Member for Woodspring has talked about the military covenant. It is not only in relation to equipment that we have modernised. We have improved defence for our people as well. The service personnel Command Paper of 2008 put in place the first cross-Government strategy to support our armed forces with a network of champions across central and local government. We have put in place a tax-free lump sum operational bonus worth £2,360 for those fighting in Afghanistan. We have allocated more free phone calls and internet access and free wi-fi for our troops in Afghanistan. We have doubled the welfare grant for the families of those on operations. We have created top-class medical care in theatre, at Selly Oak and at Headley court. We have provided comprehensive in-service occupational mental health care. We have established a compensation scheme-

John Baron: Will the Secretary of State give way?

Bob Ainsworth: Let me complete the list, which is quite extensive.
	We have established for the first time, in contrast to what applied when the Conservative party was in power, a compensation scheme that allows injured men and women to receive compensation while they remain in the armed forces. We have doubled the tax-free lump sums for the most serious injuries, and we are committed to increasing all other levels of the award.
	We have delivered 38,000 new or improved single living bed spaces, and we have upgraded more than 14,000 family homes, despite having been saddled with the dreadful sale and leaseback agreements that were made by the Conservative party when it was in power.

Alison Seabeck: Will my right hon. Friend give way?

Bob Ainsworth: Let me complete the list.
	Basic pay has gone up in line with the recommendations of the independent Armed Forces Pay Review Body, in full and on time, in each of the past 11 years. The largest percentage increases have quite rightly been targeted at the junior ranks. The 2009-10 award means that, for the third year running, the increase for the armed forces will be among the highest in the public sector.
	Of course, we have delivered changes not just for serving personnel and their families but for leavers and veterans too. They include grants to adapt housing for disabled veterans; the retention of places on the NHS waiting list when people move between areas; help for spouses to find work when they move; priority places in state boarding schools for forces children; fairer treatment when people apply for social housing; free further or higher education for service leavers; and help with getting on the housing ladder. That is the list of measures that the Government have introduced on the welfare side.

John Baron: All the studies show that veterans are at an increased risk of suicide. What are the Government doing specifically regarding the rising number of those who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder from Iraq and Afghanistan, given that the Royal British Legion, for example, believes that the Government are not doing enough to reach out to those veterans?

Bob Ainsworth: Extensive work is being done on mental health issues, some of which will not come to light for many years to come. We are working with the Royal British Legion, and it is not true to say that we are doing anything other than that. We are working with it to try to ensure that proper structures are in place to deal with mental health-to monitor it, to ensure that support is there when the symptoms show themselves and to ensure that compensation is available. If the hon. Gentleman looks at some of the improvements that Lord Boyce has proposed, and that we intend to introduce, to ensure that mental health is covered adequately in the compensation scheme, he will see the commitment that the Government are making.

Alison Seabeck: Does my right hon. Friend share my puzzlement about the position of the Conservatives? The document they have produced does not seem to suggest anything more than what the Government are offering our service personnel.

Bob Ainsworth: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The Conservatives accuse us of not honouring the military covenant, but then they produce a document that mimics almost exactly the proposals the Government are already bringing into force. It is a case of saying something without any justification.

Julian Lewis: Will the Secretary of State give way?

Andrew Pelling: Will the Secretary of State give way?

Bob Ainsworth: No.
	To prepare our forces for the future, I have announced a formal strategic defence review and delivered a Green Paper setting out the emerging thinking on the future security environment and other key issues facing defence ahead of the review. The work set out in the Green Paper is being taken forward by the Ministry of Defence. The Government can be proud of their record. It is misleading and inaccurate to suggest that the defence budget is being cut or that operations are not properly funded from the reserve. The Government have increased defence spending and, in addition, we have paid for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, yet Opposition Members continue to push those lines because they do not want anyone to focus on what they would do.

Gerald Howarth: rose-

Bob Ainsworth: Opposition Members will have all afternoon to answer. Will they take this opportunity to set the record straight? Can they confirm today in the House whether they will maintain, let alone increase, defence spending? George Osborne- [ Interruption. ] The shadow Chancellor has said there will be cuts from day one if the Conservatives win the next election. Would the hon. Member for Woodspring like to take this opportunity to confirm whether he will stick to his pledge of an extra three battalions for the Army? That pledge was made by his party leader as well. Is it a pledge he is sticking to or a pledge that has been quietly dropped? Will he tell the House what his party's position is? Finally, would he like to confirm now whether a Conservative Government would commit to building the new aircraft carriers?
	I have listened to the hon. Gentleman and I am thoroughly disappointed by his efforts, belittling the achievements of the past 13 years. His constant undermining of the UK's huge contribution to make the world a safer world is regrettable. Why does he want to run down the UK in that way? Why does he twist the facts and misrepresent the truth, suggesting that our armed forces have inferior equipment-inferior kit-and are not properly supported? Our armed forces are among the most capable in the world. They are the best. They deserve the best and that is what we shall strive to give them in the years ahead.

Liam Fox: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I want to take this opportunity to apologise to the House. I have written to the Secretary of State and to you, Mr. Speaker, to say that unfortunately I may be unable to attend the winding-up speeches, and I would not like the House to think I had intended any discourtesy by not mentioning it to the House.

Mr. Speaker: I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his courtesy. He did indeed write to me explaining that he had a commitment elsewhere. What he has just said to the House will, I think, be understood.

Willie Rennie: I share in the tributes made on both sides of the House to those who have fallen during the past week. The pain and anxiety felt by their families and friends at this time is unimaginable, and it cannot adequately be addressed by a few words in the Chamber. That is why whenever the House makes a decision on defence matters, it is vital that we remember those who have fallen. That is the ultimate consequence of any decisions we take here.
	I, too, want to start on a note of consensus. I agreed with the hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox) when he said that the strategic defence review should have a foreign affairs baseline-as the one held in 1998 did-not a Treasury baseline, that 12 years is too long before repeating the SDR and that the original SDR was not fully funded. I also agreed with the Defence Secretary when he identified that the Conservatives agreed with the Government every inch of the way. They were joined at the hip throughout the past 12 or 13 years. To pretend that things were different is incorrect, because they were together throughout that period. They now wish to point out their differences with the Government's record, but it is worth remembering that they were together, joined at the hip, during that time and that we were not.  [ Interruption. ] I will return.
	The competition among the Labour Government's failures is pretty tough-climate change, the mediocre education system and the huge recession-but defence must be up there among one of the biggest failures; it is the hot favourite to win that competition. That is perhaps why the numerous changes in the ministerial team have occurred almost annually. Perhaps that reflects the enormity of their task, as they see it, and the Government's failure to support their team in defence.
	Let us take housing as an example-something that the Conservatives, perhaps not surprisingly given the Defence Secretary's comments, failed to mention in the motion. Indeed, the speech made by the hon. Member for Woodspring contained not one word about housing. However, the Government should not be complacent about housing: a third of families moving into service properties complained that their new homes were filthy; two in five of them said that they were unhappy with the general condition of the property; and there were a massive 234,000 repair call-outs for 45,000 properties in the year to November 2009. That works out at five call-outs per property-an enormous number-and reveals the state of the accommodation.
	I do not know whether the Defence Secretary has a different definition of the word urgent, but it took 23 days for the repair to be made after at least one of those call-outs, and it took two months for the repair to be made after a routine call-out. It is no surprise that service families are extremely disappointed with the accommodation that has been provided. Progress has been made-Ministers have pointed that there have been improvements to the housing stock-but at the current rate, it will take another 20 years before we can get the accommodation up to condition 1. That is simply not good enough.
	Meanwhile, we are spending an absolute fortune- £67 million-on substitute family and single accommodation, while other properties remain empty. I appreciate that some of those properties are in different parts of the country, but 8,000 of them are empty at any one time. More than 2,000 of them remain empty for more than a year, while the top brass are living the life of Riley. One property-a mansion-has been rented for £7,000 a month for a general. That costs £84,000 a year, which is enough to pay for five privates. I have asked Defence Ministers a series of questions, and we have found out that about 11 members of the top brass are renting properties at more than £2,000 a month. How can that be justified? Has any action been taken since those figures were made public? Are the removal vans moving in already? Have we got them booked to move those people out? Paying £7,000 a month is an absolute outrage. Some might say that that is a drop in the ocean, but it is significant. If our top brass are behaving in that way, what does it reveal about the rest of the system? Surely, action must be taken.
	Before the Tories get too smug about these matters, they must remember the Annington Homes fiasco. The Defence Secretary is absolutely right about the scandalous decision taken back in 1996. Since then, Annington Homes has received about £1.5 billion in rental income from those properties. To make matters worse, Annington Homes does not have to foot the bill for the repair of the properties. That amounts to another £300 million for the same period-a total of £1.8 billion directly into the pockets of Annington Homes at the stroke of a Conservative blue pen. That is an outrage. The Conservatives should be embarrassed about it, and perhaps they are. That may be why there is no reference to that matter in the Conservative motion today.

Brian Jenkins: Did the hon. Gentleman take the opportunity, when he was doing his research, to see where the money from the sale of those homes went to? Did it go into the MOD budget, or did it merely go back to the Treasury?

Willie Rennie: The hon. Gentleman probably knows the answer to that question.

Linda Gilroy: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that Annington Homes should put some money back into homes for the military from the profit that it has been making?

Willie Rennie: The hon. Lady makes a sensible point. If the company had a conscience about these matters, it would repay a contribution. The state of some of the accommodation leaves a lot to be desired, and a contribution would be appropriate, as she suggests.
	I shall move to a slightly more consensual topic, health, where there have been some improvements. The Selly Oak facility is recognised as first class. Bringing the best of the military together with the best of the NHS means that soldiers who, in the past, would probably have died in the front line on the battlefield now have modern medicine available to them. Despite the pain that the Government went through in making a decision to move to that model of care, it probably is the right one.

Andrew Pelling: May I offer an example of a positive response from the NHS? In my local area, it has been very willing to work with the Royal British Legion on a special centre for those returning with combat stress. Officials at Mayday Healthcare NHS Trust made a great effort to respond quickly and positively to the need.

Willie Rennie: The hon. Gentleman makes a valuable contribution, but I am afraid the response is rather piecemeal across the country. Some work has shown that not all health boards and health authorities are responding in the same way. Among GPs, awareness of veterans care is not as it should be. I shall return to that shortly. However, there have been some examples of good care, as the hon. Gentleman suggests.
	Headley Court is another good example of the partnership between charity and the Ministry of Defence in treating those who, I say again, might have passed away on the front line in the past. Miracles have been performed at Headley Court with some of those people. When I visited, I was extremely impressed with the work that has been done. The ethos is to get people not just back to good health, but in some cases back to work. That employment discipline at the facility is first class.

Mark Pritchard: The hon. Gentleman mentions miracles, and he will know that the chaplaincy of all three armed services plays a very important part in the delivery of the health care system. Will he put on record for the House and for those outside a tribute to the chaplains who do so much work on the front line and behind the scenes?

Willie Rennie: We underestimate the contribution that the ministry makes to general health care in the military and to the social well-being of individuals who are in hospital. We should recognise and praise that. We sometimes dismiss things that have been there for some time; we take them for granted, and we should not do so. The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point.
	There is a centre at Chilwell for the Territorials who have returned from conflict. The stress and trauma that they underwent in previous conflicts was not recognised, but now that they are an integral part of the armed forces, it is vital that they have that service, so that when they return from conflict, they can get the support that the rest of the armed forces receive.
	There are concerns, however, and an awful lot more needs to be done for veterans. The six pilot projects are making good progress, and good work is being done. However, some 2,500 ex-servicemen make up about 3 per cent. of the prison population, and the suicide rate among veterans is high, so it is absolutely vital that we advance the progress on support for veterans, who feel ignored and rejected by society. They feel very proud to be in the armed forces, and rightly so, but that recognition does not necessarily exist when they return home. Many health authorities-and about one in three GPs-are simply unaware of priority treatment status in the health service, and it is vital that we overcome that inadequacy and advance the work of the pilot projects.
	Moving on to procurement, I believe-I can see the hon. Member for Glasgow, South-West (Mr. Davidson) getting excited; I think that he lives on an aircraft carrier-that we need to begin by acknowledging the sheer enormity of the public debt. Even before the current downturn, the MOD had massive debt, and Bernard Gray, in his report last October, noted the gap of about £35 billion between our commitments and the resources that are available to fulfil them. Some analysts estimate that the annual shortfall is as much as £10 billion, and that is out of a total budget of about £37 billion. The figures vary and estimates come and go, but in reality we have an enormous gap between our commitments and our resources. That is Labour's legacy-a budget that is out of control and a programme that is years late.
	The Eurofighter is beset by overruns, delays and technical problems. It is now expensive and unnecessary, and its capabilities are inappropriate. The future rapid effect system was committed to in 1998, but it will not be completed until 2017, and perhaps even later. The aircraft carriers-

Ian Davidson: Yes?

Willie Rennie: The hon. Gentleman is paying attention. The Government committed back in 1998 to construct the aircraft carriers, but the deal was signed only in 2008. Embarrassingly, only months later the project was delayed by another two years, costing the taxpayer an additional £1 billion. The hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox) stole my line-the spend now to save later principle has been changed to save now to spend an awful lot more later.

Angus Robertson: For the purposes of clarity, may I take the hon. Gentleman back to his comments on the Eurofighter, which he seemed to say is not needed? Will he clarify exactly what he said and the consequences that his comments would have for RAF Leuchars?

Willie Rennie: We have made considerable progress with the Eurofighter contract, but we are referring to tranche 3, as the hon. Gentleman knows full well, because I am sure that he has studied these matters.
	The MOD spent £259 million buying eight Chinook Mk 3 helicopters for the Special Air Service, but the cost to the MOD is now £500 million and those helicopters are still not in the air.

Ian Davidson: rose-

Willie Rennie: The hon. Gentleman was a wee bit slow to intervene.

Ian Davidson: I thought that the hon. Gentleman was going to say more about the aircraft carriers. Does he agree with his colleague the hon. Member for North Devon (Nick Harvey), who, when he met the convenors of the shipyard unions last week, indicated that the aircraft carriers were safe with the Liberals, and that they supported the building of the aircraft carriers, irrespective of a defence review? That went some way to lift the workers' mood, compared with hearing from the Conservatives that on day one of any future Conservative Government they would examine the break clauses. The Liberals did not say anything like that, and the unions very much welcomed their position.

Willie Rennie: I am relieved to hear what my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Nick Harvey) said, because I have not spoken to him since his visit. That shows the Conservatives' position on the matter-they are not committed to the aircraft carriers. Revealingly, however, the Defence Secretary also refused to answer the relevant question, and I was a bit puzzled by that, so I hope that he will take this opportunity to contribute.

Julian Lewis: I can help out the hon. Gentleman, because last Thursday I, like the Secretary of State for Defence, had the pleasure of going to Portsmouth to attend the steel-cutting ceremony for the first of the aircraft carriers. I listened carefully to the Secretary of State, who said that the Government were committed to the aircraft carriers-I think that I am using his words correctly-unless there were to be some very radical recommendations from the defence review. I took that to mean that the Government's position is that they are not exempting the aircraft carriers from the defence review, even though they believe that they will probably be confirmed by it. That is a sensible position for the Secretary of State, and indeed for us, to take.

Willie Rennie: I thank the hon. Gentleman-that was very helpful.
	The cost of the three Astute class submarines has risen from £2.5 billion to £3.8 billion, and the Type 45 destroyers are costing £1 billion each-£1.5 billion over budget in total-and are two years late. There has been a whole plethora of mismanaged projects over the years. That is the background against which we move forward to the next strategic defence review. It is essential that that SDR is not just a crude hacking job-there has to be some strategy around it.
	The Tories seem to have perpetuated the myth that Britain can act alone. The last time we did that was in the Falklands, and even then we relied on intelligence from the United States. They seem to think that Britain has not changed, and that the world has not changed, in the past 50 years, and that we can carry on as we are. We need to share and to work with others. That does not mean working only with the United States but-I know this will make the hair stand up on the back of their necks-with our colleagues in Europe. The record of co-operation with some European nations has not been great, but it is one of the few options open to us-they need to work with us and we need to work with them. I believe that we can achieve an awful lot by working together and that, over time, the situation will improve.
	There were no references to Trident in both speeches made by Front Benchers. Given that we have the non-proliferation treaty negotiations coming up very soon, that is a very disappointing development. This does not seem to be the priority that the Prime Minister led us to believe that it was going to be. It is simply misguided to continue with a full-blooded, gold-plated nuclear weapons system. The Government's attitude to the defence of the nation is stalled in a cold war mentality that is hopelessly anachronistic against the threats of sub-national terrorists and insurgents. President Obama has given us an awful lot more hope. Perhaps the shine has come off his presidency, but he is still prepared to discuss this with others-others to whom his predecessor would not even have picked up the phone. That is a welcome development that we must grab with both hands.
	We must take forward the opportunity presented by the NPT. We opposed the decision back in 2007 prematurely to decide to go ahead with the new nuclear deterrent. That decision was premature, and we should not have made it at that time. In effect, it sent a message to the rest of the world that Britain was carrying on as normal and that we intended to renew Trident.

Bernard Jenkin: The hon. Gentleman seems to be proposing an alternative nuclear deterrent to Trident-what is it? Is it an existing system or would it have to be designed and created, how much would it cost, and what would be the timing of its introduction?

Willie Rennie: These are excellent questions, and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will pose them to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North-East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell), who is sitting behind me and who is carrying out a review on this important matter, which must be considered to ensure that we get the right system. I am sure that we will have a discussion later, when the hon. Gentleman can feed in his views about what that system should be.
	It was misguided to make the decision in advance of the NPT talks that will take place later this year; we should have waited. The main gate decision was due to be made in 2014, but we decided to make it way in advance of that, and there was no need to do so.

Linda Gilroy: I think I remember correctly that the hon. Gentleman served on the Select Committee on Defence when we examined the various reports on the matter, and I ask him two things. First, what is his assessment of the maintenance of the nuclear skills base in the context that he is setting out? Secondly, did he not look at all the alternatives set out in the White Paper? What alternatives that were not considered or that were dismissed in it is the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell) likely to come forward with? The hon. Gentleman must have some idea, having looked into the matter in detail.

Willie Rennie: I have answered the second question, and the hon. Lady knows the answer to the first-we have been over it before. The skills base would not have been affected if we had made the decision at the beginning. We did not need to make all the decisions then, and the main gate decision was the important one. Britain said that Trident would go ahead no matter what the 2010 non-proliferation treaty said, which was simply misguided.

Menzies Campbell: I am sure that my hon. Friend has not forgotten the important issue of continuous at-sea deterrence and whether four submarines are necessary. Has he noticed that the Prime Minister has floated the idea of having three instead? That rather suggests that the unqualified enthusiasm for the project on the Labour Benches may not be mirrored in No. 10 Downing street.

Willie Rennie: I had not mentioned that, because I did not want to steal my right hon. and learned Friend's thunder. He is right that we should consider a whole range of matters, and I will read his report with interest when it comes out. It will be a great contribution to the debate.
	I hope that I will not bore you too much, Madam Deputy Speaker, if I read out part of the NPT, which mentions the desire
	to further the easing of international tension and the strengthening of trust between States in order to facilitate the cessation of the manufacture of nuclear weapons, the liquidation of all their existing stockpiles, and the elimination from national arsenals of nuclear weapons and the means of their delivery pursuant to a Treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.
	I am therefore puzzled by the position of the Government and the Opposition Front Benchers.

Julian Lewis: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Willie Rennie: Not yet; the hon. Gentleman will get his chance.
	The Defence Secretary recently said:
	But we have got to balance that against the uncertain world that we face. The threat changes. If one looks back, its changed hugely over time and no-one can be certain that that won't happen again.

Julian Lewis: rose-

Willie Rennie: Wait, because the Conservative spokesman, the hon. Member for Woodspring, has said:
	The only thing you can predict with any certainty is that we will not be good at predicting the future.
	In short, Labour and the Conservatives will never, ever disarm. With their words, they dismiss the treaty. The inability absolutely to predict events means that according to them, there should always be a nuclear deterrent. Irrespective of the threats, the cost and the treaty's aim to ease international tension and strengthen trust, they will always retain the full-blooded, gold-plated system. That directly contradicts the disarmament aims in the treaty.

Julian Lewis: Does the hon. Gentleman understand the meaning of the phrase general and complete disarmament, which was in the part of the treaty that he read out? It means an arms-free world. When we get to the stage at which we can safely have an arms-free world, we can safely have a nuclear-free world. If we have a nuclear-free world when countries are still at each other's throats and armed to the teeth with conventional weapons, we will make the world safe only for world war three. As long as other countries have nuclear weapons in a world such as we live in today, my party will want to have a nuclear deterrent.

Willie Rennie: That is the cold war mentality-it has never moved on. There is always an idea that because we cannot predict the future, nothing must happen. That is a pessimistic view of the world, and the Conservative Front Benchers have absolutely no hope on these issues.
	Moving on to Iraq, surely the Government's biggest failure has been sending our troops to war on a false prospectus, ill prepared, ill equipped and then overstretched, tarnishing our reputation throughout the world and, worst of all, costing the lives of thousands. That stored up problems in Afghanistan, too-we took our eye off the ball in Afghanistan by failing to maintain sufficient troops when we kicked in the door in Iraq. This part of my speech will be short, because it needs the least justification. It is plain and simple. The Government's character and judgment were tested and found wanting. Labour and its backers in the Conservative party will be haunted by that decision, which will live with them for years.

Several hon. Members: rose -

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I remind right hon. and hon. Members that Mr. Speaker has imposed a 15-minute limit on Back-Bench contributions. I give advance warning that that length of time may have to be reduced to allow time for Front Benchers to wind up.

Doug Henderson: May I start by paying tribute to the great sacrifice that has been made by our troops when they have been deployed in recent years-in fact, in the 23 years that I have been in Parliament? I saw the courage, motivation, commitment and professionalism of those troops during my period as a Defence Minister, and I have continued to see those qualities displayed as the current chairman of the European Security and Defence Assembly. I have been to some of the war zones recently, including Afghanistan, and seen what has happened there.
	I am extremely grateful that I managed to catch your eye, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is said that there is always a great queue to make a maiden speech and that one has to wait one's turn, but I rather fear that in this Parliament, there is going to be something of a queue to make a last, valedictory speech. I do not know whether this will be my last speech, but it may well be-I am very much in the hands of both the Prime Minister and you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and your judgment on who should be called. That being so, I should like to say that it was a privilege to make my maiden speech and to contribute to the House since, and to catch your eye today, Madam Deputy Speaker, in such an important debate.
	I should like briefly to say something on the European Security and Defence Assembly before I address what has been said by the Front-Bench speakers so far. When we discussed the Lisbon treaty in the House, we disagreed about many things, but we all agreed that European security and defence policy was an intergovernmental matter and that it should stay that way, and that the European Parliament had no locus whatever over it. We also agreed that it was important that defence policy was subject to scrutiny at international level. That should be the case for European security and defence policy. I hope that Front Benchers acknowledge the importance of continuing European-level scrutiny, and support a reformed European Security and Defence Assembly as the most appropriate body for that. I hope everyone agrees that it would be absolutely wrong for defence to become a responsibility of the European Parliament.
	On the main debate, it pains me a little when party politics becomes involved in crucial issues for the nation. When I was a young man-this is my memory of recent political history-a minimal amount of party politics was involved in issues central to the defence of the nation. One damaging feature of more recent political history is that there is an increasing desire on the part of political parties-I am not blaming any one party for this-to make short-term capital out of issues that I believe, as I have always believed, are fundamental to the security of the nation.
	I disagree with the Conservative motion because I do not think it was proposed in the context of what is right for the nation and for Conservative thinking about its future. When I look at the motion, I see an Opposition motion, pinpointing one or two faults that may or may not have been the responsibility of the Labour Government. I am not saying that everything in the motion is wrong, but my main argument with it is that it is a party-political motion that tries to nitpick faults, but does not deal with the real issues that affect the security of this nation.
	The motion does not deal with the threat, and in a debate on defence it is pointless to discuss anything else without a vision of the threat. Defence policy, by its very nature is best-guesswork to some extent. We cannot foresee the future. Winston Churchill said in 1922 that he could not envisage a situation in which Britain would be at war with Japan. I am sure that he said that with the best intentions, but he was very wrong, because he was not taking a long view. The lesson for us all is that it is very difficult to predict exactly the shape or the nature of the world ahead. I would have hoped that the motion today would have considered the threat.
	We may all agree about what we see immediately before us. We know that there is a threat in Afghanistan from failed states and terrorist organisations that would destroy democracy, given the chance, throughout the rest of the world, using areas such as Afghanistan, parts of Africa and, indeed, other areas in Asia, to develop bases, interfere in the education of the people and begin terrorist activities. We also recognise that there are problems in the middle east. We do not know exactly how they will play out, but they are a major threat.
	One of my arguments with the Liberal Democrats is that they are so party political in appeasing and appealing to people who think that war will not exist in the world because people will be good, that they fail to consider the issue of security for the nation. They cannot answer the question about future arguments between states. At the moment, defence may be about protecting oneself from terrorism, but there are no guarantees-remember Winston Churchill-that in the future there will not be conflicts between states, sometimes with different terrorist organisations being part of those interstate conflicts. In my view-and I have held this view for a long time-it would be extreme folly for Britain to give away its nuclear deterrent against that possible political situation in the future. There is no purpose in having second-level deterrents: we have to have top-level deterrents if we are to protect the interests of the nation. That is the issue to which the Liberal Democrats and some other parties have to face up.
	I would be interested to know the Conservative Front Benchers' position on this issue. I know the views of some Conservative Members, but what is the position of Front Benchers on the nuclear deterrent?

Laurence Robertson: Our position is crystal clear and I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman does not know it. It is a shadow Cabinet decision, and has been for some time, that we are committed to renewing the Trident nuclear deterrent.

Doug Henderson: If that is an absolute guarantee, I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman was able to give it, and I hope that it will be given prominence in Conservative thinking on defence policy. I did not expect the Conservative party to come up with an all-embracing outline of what an SDR should eventually produce today, but I did expect some thrust about where it saw the threat coming from in the future. Apart from those threats that I have mentioned so far, does it see a threat from cyber warfare? Does the Conservative party think that there is a threat from the impact of climate change on, for example, food prices or the availability of food or water? If the Conservative party thinks that those are threats, surely we should have heard something about that from the Conservative Front-Bench spokesman, but there was nothing about that at all. My view is that cyber terrorism is a real threat and could be a major part of any war front in future. It has to be countered, and the resources have to be found to do that.
	I return to the point that I made in my intervention on the hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox). Does the Conservative party accept that there are choices? Opposition parties do not really have to identify choices, but in the run-up to the general election, the public want to know what the different parties are saying about the nation's defence. They want to know whether the parties have accepted that, in the real world, there are choices. We cannot have everything: that is the nature of things. Expenditure has to be allocated. Therefore, the starting point is the threat. Once the threat has been identified, then the question is: how much of the nation's resources are we prepared to spend on it? We still spend more, I think, than nearly every other European Union country.

Linda Gilroy: We are second.

Doug Henderson: Yes, we are second. We therefore spend a significant amount already, but is public opinion going to wear a greater amount of our gross domestic product being spent on defence? Those on my Front Bench raised that issue with those on the Conservative Front Bench in earlier exchanges, but I am not yet clear whether the Conservative party will guarantee the existing percentage of the nation's resources being spent on defence, should they win a general election. That will be a key point in the election, and I will be watching what the Conservatives say on that very carefully. Indeed, I would have liked to hear something about it in today's debate, because our armed forces will be listening to and watching this debate. They will want to know what the future is for them, and whether they will be properly resourced, regardless of who forms the Government after the next general election. Cost is a factor; one cannot get away from cost.
	Another thing that has to be dealt with-I will have to précis this point because of the time-is that we cannot have everything to defend our nation, even if we could face the cost. We have to decide what the core provision is-that is, what is there in case we need it at any time-and then we have to know how much flexibility there is, so that we can have additional provision to meet any exigencies that arise along the way. That is an important issue, and it has a huge amount to do with the procurement budget. I am trying not to be party political about this point, but again, I did not hear from the Conservatives whether they believed that movement across the sea required the building of two new carriers and whether that would be sustained, regardless of anything else that was decided in a strategic review. That is another question that will be asked.
	However, the important question is: what is the core provision? Core provision is usually straightforward, and includes, for instance, intelligence, which will be crucial in future, and an Army that is at least the same size as what we have now-or perhaps bigger-and deployable. That is crucial core provision. Drones and various other unmanned aerial vehicles appear to be an essential part of core provision in the future; therefore, choices have to be made. Do we spend our air budget on drones and other intelligence-gathering equipment? Or, do we spend it on aircraft that can precision-attack, even in bad weather-at the moment it is questionable whether some of our aircraft can do that-or on air-to-air combat aircraft? Except for in a small way in the Falkland Islands, we have not been involved in air-to-air combat on any significant scale since the Korean war-that is, if my memory is accurate. I am happy to be corrected on that, but the last time was certainly a long time ago. Yet as a nation we still order air-to-air combat aircraft. Is the aircraft priority the defence of our naval capacity?
	Those big issues have to be faced. They are all about choice, and some are about additional choice. We need to have the core provision, but there must be a capability beyond that, which will allow us to augment, depending on the situation that we face. Lift is another matter that the strategic defence review needs to consider. We cannot have deployable troops without the necessary lift capacity. We also need to ask whether we envisage ever again having a major conflict in areas furth of where we are, as we say in Scotland. Could Britain ever again engage on her own in a conflict à la Falklands, or will we always be involved in an international intervention, with NATO, the European Union or another coalition of the willing? If we envisage the vast majority of our future deployments involving such coalitions, we need to think much more carefully about how we co-operate with the others who are deploying, and to what extent interoperability exists regarding our equipment. That, too, is a key issue that must be dealt with.
	Many defence issues relating to the security of the nation need to be debated. The Conservatives could have done much better in their motion today. They could have looked at the big issues and explained how they intended to approach them in a strategic review, were they to be in government. They could have identified areas of consensus with the present Government on policies that they believe should be pursued in the interests of the nation. Those are the issues that should have been in their motion. They are not, however, and I will vote against it tonight.

Robert Key: It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, North (Mr. Henderson). His speech illustrates one of the problems that the Government have had over the years: they have had too many Defence Ministers. He might recall that when he was a Minister and I was his shadow, he took me to Slovenia on a sensitive and difficult mission to convince an emerging democracy of the importance of the Opposition being joined at the hip with the Government on defence policy. That important mission symbolised something very important, which the hon. Gentleman has talked about. Our discussions this afternoon should not detract from the position that everyone in this House, from whatever political party, supports Her Majesty's forces up to the hilt, and that whatever the politicians ask them to do, we back them as they do it, even though we might disagree with it politically.
	That does not, however, mean that the Opposition can renege on their duty to hold the Government to account-through the Select Committee, through challenging them in debates such as these, or in any other way-on the ways in which they have or have not fulfilled their support for the armed forces. I hope that this debate will not become too party political, but it is an inevitable part of the strength of our military position that we hold the Government to account for the decisions that they take, without in any way departing from the vital principle that we in the House support Her Majesty's forces, even if we argue about the ways and means. Similarly, we never have a vote in the Select on Defence Committee; I cannot remember there ever being such a vote.
	I agree completely with the motion. It makes some very constructive points, particularly about the next strategic defence review. I remember criticising the Government in 1998 for not saying that they would have a review in four or five years. I remember arguing that we should adopt the American or Australian system of having a regular review every four or five years. It is nonsense to say, Oh, well, we've had some updates since then, as the Government's amendment seems to suggest. A rolling programme of defence reviews every four years would have avoided some of the difficulties that we have had-for example, in moving from Iraq to Afghanistan, and in the flexible approach needed in assessing risk these days.
	I think, too, that the motion is entirely justified in pointing out the muddle, post-Iraq war, in post-conflict resolution. It is perfectly obvious that we did not work it out then, and that there was no joined-up government-it may have had something to do with the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Clare Short), who was then Secretary of State for International Development, and her particular view of the Iraq war-but NATO and the allies made a big mistake in not settling down properly to study what was going to happen after the war.
	If we are to have a new system of defence reviews on a regular basis-I hope we do-we have to be prepared to stand back even further and perhaps give a new role to voices such as that of the Defence Academy of the UK at Shrivenham, which does a great deal of thinking about these issues; I salute the academy for that.
	The motion is also quite correct in pointing out what nonsense the cut in the helicopter budget of £1.4 billion in 2004 was. It was indeed folly; there is no ducking that. The deficiencies in the procurement of the A400M and the air-to-air refuelling capability have been a major blight on military planning ever since. The cuts in the frigate and destroyer fleets of the Royal Navy were a great mistake, as was slippage on the carriers. The provision of aircraft for the aircraft carriers is also looking difficult, in view of where the joint strike fighter is in terms of planning and production.
	The motion is also correct to point out the deficiencies in the military covenant, particularly housing. It is true in my constituency, as it is true, I am sure, in those of many other hon. Members who have military garrisons or quarters in their constituencies; they will be familiar with the sort of problems that arise. Only last month I visited some married quarters in Netheravon in my constituency, where I found some tired old 1950s housing. To be perfectly honest, it should be bulldozed and started again. It has been patched and repatched, but there are still holes in the roof, leaking walls, rising damp and so forth. In this day and age, this is not the sort of accommodation that we should expect our forces or their families to be placed in.
	Because Project Allenby is happening close to my constituency, and in it, I know that the Ministry of Defence is engaged in the biggest single building programme it has ever carried out. It includes many upgrades of existing houses as well as the construction of new married quarters and single person service accommodation. It was astonishing when the Ministry of Defence recently cut £14 million from the housing budget, hitting the upgrading of married quarters for 4,000 families-and at the stroke of a pen up the road there in the Ministry of Defence! That is having a huge impact on the lives of 4,000 service personnel. That was another great mistake-whatever one may say, looking back in history, about what happened with Addington homes and so forth, which seemed such a good idea at the time. We should beware of failing to take the issue of military housing seriously.
	The Government amendment has plenty in it with which I can agree, but it is rather over the top in talking about 31 new ships, as it is probably true that those were all ordered by the Conservative Government; certainly most of them were. The amendment also refers to improved medical services. Of course that is true. What happened at Selly Oak is controversial but very good; what is happening in Headley Court is very good; support for combat stress is very good. It is also true to say, however, that the military depend to a substantial extent on the national health service. The demise of the old military hospitals was the right decision to take, and NHS consultants are now heavily involved both on the front line, on secondment from their NHS hospitals as in the case of the Salisbury district hospital, and through the specialties they can provide, such as plastics, burns units, rehabilitation facilities and so forth in NHS hospitals, which are widely used by the services-and quite right, too.
	Something has, however, gone wrong with welfare services. My constituency has seen cuts in the Army welfare services, which I greatly regret, because they put a bigger burden on local authority services. My local authority currently spends about half a million pounds a year on looking after servicemen and their families.
	Where would our military welfare be if it were not for Help for Heroes, an organisation that has really caught the imagination of the British public? We know that the British public have the greatest admiration for all our armed forces in all three services, but is it not astonishing that they are putting their hands in their pockets-to the tune of about £8 million a year-to support Help for Heroes, which in turn supports organisations such as Headley Court, the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association, and the Selly Oak patient welfare fund? Where, indeed, would Help for Heroes be without my constituents Bryn and Emma Parry, who founded it? We are all deeply grateful to them.
	Where in all this, I have to ask, is the Royal British Legion? It seems to have lost the plot. You and I know, Madam Deputy Speaker, and everyone else in the House knows, that the Royal British Legion provides services for current servicemen and servicewomen and their families as well as for veterans, but that is not the public image. At the weekend I talked to some 30-year-olds who clearly thought that the RBL was all about poppy day and parading around the town once a year. I enlightened them, of course, but nevertheless that is the image, and that is why Help for Heroes and a number of other charities have become so popular.

Linda Gilroy: I agree with the hon. Gentleman to an extent about the perception of the Royal British Legion, but does he share my welcome for the support that it is giving to Citizens Advice, which it is helping to fund a national network of advice on matters that service families, service personnel and veterans need to know about?

Robert Key: Of course I welcome that hugely. I also welcome the RBL's support for people who are leaving the forces, which is really important. However, I hope that the RBL will raise its game and help the public to understand the work that it does, every day of the week and every week of the year, not just for veterans but for young men and women who come out of the forces with either a physical or a mental difficulty.
	The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, North (Mr. Henderson) mentioned new threats. Of course he is right about cyber warfare, which I have been going on about relentlessly in the Defence Committee ever since I visited Estonia, that doughty partner of British forces in Afghanistan. I visited its cyber defence college. Estonia has a NATO-sponsored college, in which Britain plays a modest role. It is the only NATO nation that has been subject to cyber threat and cyber attack, and it has a lot to teach us.
	I also agree with the hon. Gentleman about climate change. When the Select Committee was preparing a report on the future of NATO two or three years ago, I was struck by a visit that I paid to Denmark. We heard that the Danes were way ahead of the curve in assessing the impact of climate change on strategic sea routes around the northern hemisphere. It was to the Danes' advantage to ensure that they were on top of defence strategy, because Greenland was suffering from a retreating ice sheet which was opening up opportunities not just for fossil fuel exploration and development, but for the strategic defence of new northern trade routes around the whole of the north American continent. When the Committee went to Moscow, I pursued that point with the Russians. They too have that new opportunity, all around the northern shores of the Russian Federation, with the possibility of new trade routes throughout the world.
	That is another reason why it is utter folly to talk of abandoning the Royal Navy aircraft carrier project. Britain must continue to have global reach. We need the Royal Navy, and we will need it even more in the next 10 to 20 years. We must not forget that. Given that more than 90 per cent. of Britain's trade depends on sea routes, our seaports-the great ports of Plymouth and Portsmouth, for instance-will depend on the Royal Navy for the preservation, conservation and growth of the nation's prosperity. New threats will need new solutions, therefore, and the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, North is right about the importance of intelligence, such as that from unmanned aerial vehicles, in various phases.
	It is in the interests of the nation for the Ministry of Defence to do all it can to improve the quality of its equipment and its people, and to help the families who support our servicemen and all those who follow the flag. I will no longer be a Member of this House when future defence debates take place, so I will not be able to contribute to them; this will be my last defence speech, after almost 27 years and an awful lot of defence speeches. My message has always been the same, however: we should spend more of our GDP on defence. It is folly not to do so.
	It was, of course, right that we rolled back our defence spending at the end of the cold war, but the peace dividend was, in my view, entirely illusory, because new threats replaced the old threats. That will always be the case. In respect of defence policy, unpredictability is the only thing that is predictable. We should never forget that. We should never drop our guard; we should always be right at the forefront, as my constituents are every day, at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down, for example, and at the Health Protection Agency's Centre for Emergency Preparedness and Response. All the defence scientists and all the people who are prepared to lay down their lives for this country deserve the undying support, recognition and affection of our constituents and of every Member of this House.

Linda Gilroy: First, may I share in the expressions of support for our armed services and of regret for the loss of life, and pay tribute to all those who have made that sacrifice?
	It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Salisbury (Robert Key) on the occasion of his final defence speech. He has been consistent in his support for the armed services, in speaking up for more money for defence, and in taking a balanced approach in the scrutiny of defence issues. One might wish that he had been the Conservative Member introducing the motion at the beginning of the debate-although he will not be surprised to learn that I cannot agree with him in supporting the motion-because the opening speech from the Conservative Front Bench was far too pugnacious, as my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, North (Mr. Henderson) has suggested.
	It has been a pleasure to serve alongside the hon. Member for Salisbury on the Defence Committee in this Parliament. It has been my first term as a member of the Committee, and I think we have provided constructive scrutiny, based on in-depth inquiries, on the subjects of deployments, health and welfare packages, and procurement. There has been plenty for us to get our teeth into, and I have to say that the Government responses to our reports have been a little mixed. On the whole, however, their responses have been positive, particularly on health, education and welfare issues.
	The welfare issue is one subject on which I cannot possibly agree with the motion. It states that we have failed to honour the Military Covenant. Far from it: the responses to the many Select Committee reports on education, health and the welfare package have been comprehensive. The Royal British Legion has also played a considerable part in lobbying on those issues, of course. I welcomed the summer 2008 personnel Command Paper and the establishment of the external reference group, which was set up to make sure the issues raised were followed through. On compensation, housing, travel and education, we have gone rather further than was proposed in the Conservative-commissioned paper on those matters. Compensation for the most serious injuries doubled, to £570,000, and the 2010 review included further improvements, such as a 30 per cent. uplift in guaranteed income payments for young servicemen with life-changing injuries, recognising that they might well have had a military career ahead of them that would have enhanced their income over time.
	Conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have been sustained over what will soon be a decade. Tory complaints that they have not been funded ignore-when this is looked at in the round-not just the 10 per cent. real-terms increase, which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State mentioned in his opening statement, and the funding from the reserve for the deployments, but the significant contribution that cumulative savings in the defence budget have made in each comprehensive spending review period. They have enabled either cost pressures to be relieved-those have not gone away-or more to be spent on defence priorities.
	On 16 December 2009, at column 1210W, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State set out in answer to a written question that in the CSR period 1998-99 to 2001-02 the cumulative savings in cash and resources were slightly more than £2 billion, that in 2004-05 to 2006-07-in the three-year period of the Gershon review-the cumulative saving was £3 billion against the 2004 baseline, and the figure for the first year of the 2007-08 to 2010-11 CSR period against the 2008 baseline was £600 million.

Alison Seabeck: Was my hon. Friend surprised that the Opposition Front-Bench spokesperson, who aspires to be in government, did not seem to be aware of those figures when she posed a question to him?

Linda Gilroy: I was surprised by that, and by the whole nature of the contribution made by the hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox), given that he gave a sensible speech to the Royal United Services Institute. Hon. Members will not be surprised to learn that it did not differ a great deal from what is set out in the Green Paper, except that it perhaps put rather more emphasis on a capacity to act alone. As my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, North (Mr. Henderson) said, such an approach is decreasingly likely to be taken.
	It is a sign of a confident Minister and Ministry that they are willing to engage with and respond to scrutiny. The evidence shows that that has been demonstrated not only in relation to the Command Paper, but in other respects, notably on the Gray review. One would sometimes think that it was not the Government who had commissioned that review, in order to take seriously the pressures and issues that have arisen, but they did and they were ready with a response to it-and on the Defence strategy for acquisition reform, which was published alongside the Green Paper.
	The Gray report said:
	the UK's allies are by and large complimentary and in some cases envious about what the UK has done to drive reform in this area.
	Indeed, table 10-3, on page 215, suggests that the UK compares favourably with the United States and Australia. The Defence Equipment and Support agency features in the top quartile of the Human Systems Ltd benchmarking of UK and international organisations managing complex projects. It is therefore not exactly the basket case alluded to in the motion.
	On urgent operational requirements-examples include the Jackal, which is procured in my constituency, and built in Devonport dockyard, and the L129A1 Sharpshooter rifle, deliveries of which were made in January 2010, just two months after the order had been placed-the contrast with the Conservative Administration could not be greater.
	I commend to the House, and to any Member who was not present at the time and who has not heard reference made to it, the speech made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George) on 28 February 2000, in which he set out an A to Z of Conservative failures during his period of service on the Select Committee on Defence. That covered everything from the infamous Annington Homes deal, which has been mentioned on a number of occasions, Apache, Bowman, the cancelled common new generation frigate and the Eurofighter-the consequent problems still beset us-to, going on to the end of the alphabet, the Tornado F3 upgrade, the Upholder class submarine, Westland, Yarrow, of course, which saw the beginnings of its demise under the Conservative Government, and Zircon, the satellite about which information was withheld.
	I think that our service personnel and the people who work so hard in the United Kingdom to support them expect more than cheap shallow politicking, which we heard not so much in the motion but in the rather pugnacious speech that was made at the beginning of the debate. I hope that the Opposition spokesman who sums up will, as well as giving us some insight into what Conservative policies will consist of, be a little more balanced and generous. Our troops deserve better than such politicking.

Ann Winterton: May I begin by paying tribute to all our serving armed forces and their families? We remember, in particular, those who have lost their lives recently or who have been injured in the service of their country.
	This could well be my last contribution to a defence debate as a Member of this House and I am grateful to Her Majesty's Opposition for securing the debate and for giving me the opportunity to make a brief speech.
	Over the life of this Parliament, I have tried to focus on three areas of defence: the personal safety of our troops; the correct equipment for the conflict; and appropriate expenditure to match the threat. I was once referred to, in a Westminster Hall debate that I had instigated, as an armchair general by no less than the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones), who sadly is not in his place today. He said that he imagined me playing with my toys at the kitchen table. I was a little cross at the time, but I did not take him to task about it. Even in that capacity it was not difficult to predict, as I did in 2006, the future deadly use of improvised explosive devices in Afghanistan based on the military's previous experience in Iraq and to realise how unprepared we were for that type of warfare.
	Some military thinking is, thankfully, changing at long last. I was delighted to read the address made by the Chief of the General Staff, General Sir David Richards, to the International Institute for Strategic Studies on 18 January this year, to which I will refer later. There is no doubt that the infantry, in particular, has changed beyond all recognition over the last decade in its provision of body armour, weaponry and vision and night sights. Those who have contributed to that advancement deserve all credit. However, there are still areas in which constructive criticism can be made, especially those concerning mine route clearing vehicles. That was an issue that my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Sir Nicholas Winterton) and I raised in oral Defence questions last week. To quote the Secretary of State, the big task that our troops need to undertake is to
	tackle the IED networks, through the increased use of intelligence, so that we can be proactive in taking apart the networks that seek to target our troops.-[ Official Report, 22 February 2010; Vol. 506, c. 5.]
	I should be grateful if the Minister could update the House on how the Talisman project is performing, although I am still at a loss to know why we entered into the Iraq and Afghan conflicts virtually unprepared when we had appropriate equipment in Bosnia in the form of Chubby sets.
	The House will know that I have, in modern parlance, banged on about vehicles being designed from scratch for blast deflection rather than blast absorption. On that basis, I have been critical of certain vehicles-none more so than the Jackal. It is a superb vehicle for special forces but not for general patrol duties. The entry of the company Supacat with its SPV400 into the light protected patrol vehicle programme vindicates the strong case that I made initially in the face of hostility and criticism, with the vehicle being designed around a V-shaped hull. The managing director of Supacat has been quoted as saying that the new design was developed as a result of the experience of the Jackal. It has, of course, been developed not just because of the fundamental flaws of the Jackal but because of competition from Force Protection, a company that was years ahead of the game, which, in relation to the Rhodesian and South African experiences, took a leaf out of that book. Force Protection must be credited with having saved the lives of thousands of service personnel in the British, American and Canadian armies in contrast to those that were playing catch-up. We have made progress in that area, but there are still those who think that those vehicles are at the lower end of the military pecking order. I believe that they are wrong, for without those vehicles the UK does not stand a chance in low-tech conflicts. Without them, the Army would probably be defeated. I believe that those vehicles will be used continuously in the future, not least because their design allows greater freedom and scope for different strategies and tactics to prevail.
	My one regret is that little or no progress has been made on aircraft that use single or twin propellers, which is very disappointing. As soon as I mention that, the fast jet brigade try to shoot me down, although those aircraft are very difficult to shoot down. However, I see that I now have an ally in General Richards himself, who has recognised the advantages of aircraft such as the Super Tucano. In a recent speech, he said:
	If one equips more for this type of conflict while significantly reducing investment in higher-end war-fighting capability, suddenly one can buy an impressive amount of 'kit'. Whilst, as you will hear, I am emphatically not advocating getting rid of all such equipment, one can buy a lot of UAVs or Tucano aircraft for the cost of a few JSF and heavy tanks.
	In the same speech, he asked:
	Can we take the risk? Well we have to take risk somewhere or run the far greater one of trying with inadequate resources to be all things to all conflicts and failing to succeed in any.
	Other nations' air forces are rapidly increasing numbers of those aircraft, not to displace fast jets, but to work in tandem with them. There are considerable advantages to using such aircraft, especially in counter-insurgency operations. It is surely a great error of judgment that that area appears not to have been more thoroughly explored.
	Helicopters are another area in which there was no need to go overboard with such expensive, over-technical aircraft, however great they may be. We have had massive expenditure on the Danish Merlins, Chinooks that did not work, and all our helicopters have had to be upgraded to make them fit for Afghanistan, many with Carson blades, but we could have had a fleet of twin-bladed Bell 212s, known as Hueys, or the four-bladed version, the Bell 412. The UK could have had sufficient numbers of aircraft that were perfectly adequate for purpose and considerably better value for money. Some tasks could have been undertaken more efficiently with fixed-wing aircraft such as the Pilatus Porter, which has a payload of just over a tonne. I fear that some minds are still set in the state-on-state conventional war scenario, harking back to the past, rather than facing up to the present, decidedly murky character of counter-insurgency. I see that what I am saying is amusing the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Mr. Davies) greatly.

Quentin Davies: I meant no discourtesy to the hon. Lady, but I have heard her making similar comments before, and I was merely smiling in recognition of her strong commitment to her case.

Ann Winterton: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for those comments. In this House, it is necessary to make one's case not just once, but 250 times, before common sense eventually prevails, so I do not apologise in any way for making the same case for as long as I am here.
	What was refreshing about General Richards's speech was his understanding of expenditure. The military sometimes appear to think they have an open cheque book-a situation possibly exacerbated by cross-service rivalry. It is obvious that they do not, and more so now.
	From a recent parliamentary answer, I was relieved to learn that the use of mortars is still strong. They are a very effective weapon and considerably cheaper to use than Javelin missiles and guided multiple-launch rocket systems. Guided multiple-launch rockets cost £68,000 each and Javelins cost approximately £49,000 each. We can compare that with the cost of mortars. The cost of a 51 mm mortar ranges from approximately £80 to £160; a 60 mm mortar ranges from approximately £185 to £640 and an 81 mm mortar from approximately £190 to £890, depending on the variant fired. We could get a hell of a lot of mortars for the cost of some of the other equipment.
	It must be recognised that in a low-tech conflict, cheaper, less complicated equipment is often more effective and reliable than its high-tech short-lived cousins. That is not to say that technology does not greatly assist; it certainly does, as has been seen in the enhanced capability provided to the infantry, which I mentioned earlier, and in many other areas. Technology is not always the answer to every problem and it needs to be used intelligently.
	As we move nearer to the future strategic defence review, I hope the three areas I have highlighted-safety for our troops, appropriate equipment for the task and expenditure, including affordability-will not be overlooked, but will be fully explored. The UK could then confidently face the future with defence forces cutting their coat according to the cloth of our finances, strategy and responsibilities as an independent nation-at least while we still have a vestige of independence.
	The European Union poses the greatest threat to that independence, as the United Kingdom is no longer master of its destiny and the European Union does not have-as this country has had throughout its history-alliances, interests, influence and direct involvement with countries throughout the world. Nor does it have the common purpose that has been the strength of the military covenant between those who put their lives at risk on behalf of us all and those who wholeheartedly support United Kingdom forces both in peacetime and at war.

Bernard Jenkin: Like my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Ann Winterton), I pay tribute to the armed forces and to those who have fallen and those who are injured in the course of operations.
	I shall not be drawn on my hon. Friend's last-minute foray into European policy, except to remark on the speech of the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, North (Mr. Henderson). He gave a dire warning that the European Parliament should not meddle in matters of defence, which should remain intergovernmental. I simply point out that plenty of us on the Opposition Benches warned that the Lisbon treaty would lead the European Parliament in exactly that direction, and further. He was warned, so if he did not want that to happen he should not have voted for the Lisbon treaty.
	I congratulate my hon. Friend on the commendable freshness with which she always approaches such debates. She has a terrier-like determination to advance her argument, which she always does coherently and cogently. Indeed, the degree of detail on specifications and prices that she gives is far beyond what most Members bring to these debates. It is a reminder of what much defence policy is actually about.
	However, I warn my hon. Friend about the sweeping judgments on the nature of future conflict that I fear she was making. She referred to outdated notions of state-on-state warfare, and said that we must be ready for the much murkier and more complex issues of counter-insurgency warfare, but the joke, as Churchill used to say, is that the War Office is always trying to fight the last war.
	I hesitate to bracket the Chief of the General Staff within such a mistake, but it is inevitable that the defence chiefs will tend to defend what they are doing and argue for more equipment so that they can do what they do, rather than doing the more difficult horizon scanning about being prepared for things that we do not expect, such as the possibility that the next war might be fought on a coastal area, where we need sea and air power. The two land-locked wars that we have been involved in Iraq and Afghanistan may well prove to be the exception. Incidentally, I point out that we had characteristics of state-on-state warfare in Kosovo and certainly in both Gulf wars and that much of the combat with the Taliban has elements of state-on-state conflict that would be common to both types of warfare.
	I want to concentrate on the key failures of Government policy since 1997. I commend the Opposition motion, but it tells only of the symptoms of failure, not its root cause-symptoms such as funding shortfalls, a failed procurement process, shrinking manpower assets and endemic overstretch. But the root cause is far more fundamental and relates to the failure of the UK's grand strategy. Bluntly, it seems that the UK no longer does strategy. We no longer seek to influence world events from our own agenda; we have been forced into reacting to them.
	Foreign and defence policy since the SDR has been characterised by three words-drift, waste and overstretch -and they all stem from the failure of strategy. Yes, as my hon. Friend the Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox) said, the SDR was based on what we call a foreign policy baseline, but as I shall point out, foreign policy tends to be more about process than about strategy and has proved a deficient basis for defence policy. There is a real danger that the 2010 SDR will be about the confirmation and re-examination of what we have been doing, rather than about being prepared for what we do not expect.
	The key to a successful 2010 SDR will be a new UK strategic concept, which must embrace the whole panoply of policy-economic stability and trade policy, the future of the EU, NATO and the national security strategy, energy security, climate change and cyber-warfare. It is from those considerations that foreign policy and the SDR must flow. The UK has never institutionalised strategy in that way, but other countries, such as the US, France and Israel do so. It is time that we did so, too.
	The outcome of 13 years of Labour drift in foreign and defence policy has resulted in the UK's global stock falling, as it did in the 1960s and '70s. Once again, we have to question our whole global role, as the UK is more exposed to external threats and global events than at any time since world war two. It has become a cliché to say that the 1998 SDR was a great piece of work, undermined only by a failure to fund it, but its failures are wider and deeper. In the light of Gulf war one, the theory of go first, go fast, go home enshrined in the SDR had some merits, but even by 1998, the experience of the Balkans was showing that such easy wins were the exception, not the rule.
	The SDR had the right process, but it produced the wrong result. NATO went into Bosnia in December 1995 with 60,000 troops. By the time the NATO mission ended in 2004, there were still 7,000 troops. Even now, 15 years after the original deployment, there are still more than 2,000 EU troops. The SDR did not anticipate 9/11, the rise of militant Islamists or the types of counter-insurgency campaign that we have seen in countries that are much larger, much more hostile and a lot of less developed than Bosnia. We should have moved on further and faster, but the Government remained wedded to the failed strategic assumptions behind the SDR.
	The new chapter and the 2004 White Paper, to which the Secretary of State referred, merely tinkered at the edges. They shied away from addressing the changed strategic environment, largely for financial reasons. Unless we learn from the mistakes of the SDR, we will be condemned to repeat its failures.
	One of the key foundations of the SDR was Labour's so-called ethical foreign policy. Actually, the Foreign Office turned that into a foreign policy with an ethical dimension, because it realised that the term ethical foreign policy is nonsense.
	Tony Blair set out this ethical dimension in his Chicago speech in 1999 justifying the intervention in Kosovo on humanitarian grounds. That was, he argued,
	a just war, based not on any territorial ambitions but on values.
	He concluded:
	In the end values and interests merge.
	Shortly before leaving office, Mr. Blair argued that his experience of foreign affairs and defence since Kosovo had left him
	more persuaded that the distinction between a foreign policy driven by values and one driven by interests is wrong. Globalisation begets interdependence. Interdependence begets the necessity of a common value system to make it work. Idealism becomes realpolitik.
	What does that mean? What does it mean for a Prime Minister who has to make a decision in a crisis? Does it mean anything in the real world? Look at how Russia and China approach the question of Iran to see how some countries deal with their values and interests. They do not regard the Iranian bomb as a threat to themselves, so they are happy to use the west's disquiet as a tool to further their own interests, regardless of values.
	This is the problem for defence with Mr. Blair's
	doctrine of the international community,
	and with the present Prime Minister's preoccupation with strengthening international institutions. International institutions must not become an end in themselves. They can be only a means to an end. The United Nations is, by definition, less than the sum of its parts. It can only ever act according to the lowest common factor of its members. Where the international community fails to accept our values, must we become a hostage to the interests of the hostile states that are blocking decisions in the UN?
	If we can only act with a UN resolution, do we not simply give Russia and China a veto over our foreign policy and our defence policy? Would it not have been better for Tony Blair to have worried less about a second resolution on Iraq and more about the challenge of post-invasion planning?
	What does this mean for defence? The doctrine of internationalism cannot any longer govern our defence policy. It leads to the very incoherence in foreign policy and in military action that we saw played out on the streets of Basra. Why did we stake our reputation on supporting the war in Iraq, but lack the political will to follow through in Basra to prevent the city falling into the hands of the militias? Why did we intervene in Helmand with far too few troops? Four years later, we have ended up with 9,500 troops on a tiny part of the footprint that we originally went in with, and with only the beginnings of a workable strategy.
	Why did we condemn the illegal election victory of Mr. Ahmadinejad, yet send the British ambassador to attend his inauguration? Labour's foreign policy has ended up compromising values and interests, and our defence as well. Messianic rhetoric has ended in debilitating drift.
	Domestic policy has been characterised by waste, and we face an economic situation that leads us once again to question whether we can afford our global role. If we are to end defence and foreign policy drift, we must ask the real question: who holds the UK's strategic concept? Where is it written down? Who will redraft it before we embark on the defence review, if we are to make it a success? Before the end of the cold war, the UK's foreign and defence policy objectives had been broadly the same for five centuries: maintain the balance of power in Europe leaving us free to develop our interests as a global trading power. In the post cold war world, what is the modern equivalent of that as the basis for defence policy?
	Throughout history, we have relied on extraordinary people in extraordinary times to frame UK strategy-men such as the elder and younger Pitt, Wellington, First Sea Lord Jackie Fisher and Winston Churchill. The end of the cold war may not have been the end of history, but it may have been the end of Europe as the principal theatre of global affairs. We have failed to develop a new grand strategy to engage with the new reality, where the stage is no longer one continent, but is the whole world.
	The Foreign Office's latest strategic assessment is surprisingly old-its new strategic framework of January 2008. It has three elements:
	i) Providing a flexible global network serving the Government as a whole.
	ii) Delivering essential services to the British public and business.
	iii) Shaping and delivering HMG's foreign policy.
	The Government's foreign policy is defined in four ways-countering terrorism; reducing and preventing conflict, which are both defensive; promoting a low-carbon, high-growth economy, which is so vague as to be almost meaningless in terms of the activity that it envisages; and developing international institutions, especially the UN and the EU. Yes, that internationalism again.
	That is not strategy. It is process. Where is trade? Where is energy security? Where are our alliances, particularly NATO, which the Government claim is still the cornerstone of our security? It is remarkable that the advanced research and assessment group at Shrivenham put the danger of a global financial collapse into the draft national security strategy, but were told to take it out, presumably for political reasons, before it occurred.

James Arbuthnot: Is my hon. Friend as concerned as I am to hear that the advanced research and assessment group is about to be abolished?

Bernard Jenkin: I am extremely concerned. I shall come to that in my closing remarks.
	If we do not have the courage to recognise strategic threats, we will never be able to face them. A new UK strategic concept must be the first paper that the Prime Minister commissions after the general election. Without it, how can the defence review decide what forces we need to tackle the threats of today and the uncertainties of tomorrow? The Prime Minister of the day must lead it, but it needs an institutional backing, as my right hon. Friend suggests, as it has in France, the US and Israel, as I said earlier. It needs to draw on advice from beyond Whitehall and particularly from a newly constructed, beefed-up ARAG, perhaps based at Shrivenham, but answerable to, and funded by, the Cabinet Office. It must provide clear-sighted strategic advice for whoever is Prime Minister.
	The objective for the SDR 2010 must not be to try to rediscover some new consensus. That is where the danger lies. It must define a new direction for our nation. That may be controversial, but it must be coherent. The SDR must recognise that stabilising the Government's finances will be the main effort in the new Parliament, but it must also define the interests and objectives which must not be compromised, despite that. It must conclude that a UK global role remains indispensable to our national interest and to the interests of global security. We must strive to maintain our position of power and influence in the long term, and we must end the era of drift, waste and overstretch.

James Arbuthnot: Thank you for calling me, Madam Deputy Speaker. The debate so far has contained some grand themes, none more so than those from my hon. Friend the Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin). His speech was superb. It is the sort of thing that I have come to expect from him on the Defence Committee.
	I pay tribute to the Defence Committee and to the right hon. and hon. Members who, over time, have served on it. My hon. Friend's contribution has been outstanding. The Committee will enormously miss the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Robert Key), who has been on it since before most of us were born, and whose contribution has been utterly outstanding. He even questioned me back in the dim and distant past when I was a member of the Government, and it was a difficult thing to deal with.
	I also pay tribute, if I may, to my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Ann Winterton), because her contributions over the years to defence debates have been extremely cogent, effective and influential in what they have brought about in defence thinking in the country.
	With such grand themes going through the debate, I want to concentrate on one small matter and speak for not very long. It may seem a small matter to many people, but it encapsulates an extremely important issue. In my constituency there is an excellent local newspaper called the  Basingstoke Gazette, and it has picked up a campaign that has been running since 1994 in relation to the pilots of the Chinook that crashed on the Mull of Kintyre.
	I want to talk about that, because the rules at the time of the crash stated that
	only in cases in which there is absolutely no doubt whatsoever should deceased air crew be found negligent.
	I take that to mean that all other possible causes of a crash should be eliminated before negligence can be found, and it is necessary to remember that it is essential to eliminate those causes in relation to both pilots. So if one of the pilots might have been negligent but the other not, and one could not tell which, it would be essential, under the rule that applied at the time, to clear both pilots.
	In Defence questions on 11 January, I therefore asked the Minister of State, Ministry of Defence, the hon. Member for Harlow (Bill Rammell), to whom these remarks are addressed, this question:
	As both pilots were found grossly negligent, how does the Minister know with absolutely no doubt whatever that both pilots agreed with the route and the course of action being taken?
	The Minister replied:
	Let me make it clear to the right hon. Gentleman, who I know has taken a detailed interest in this matter, that in all the publicity surrounding this case-and certainly that produced by the BBC in recent weeks-there has never been any evidence of technical failure.-[ Official Report, 11 January 2010; Vol. 503, c. 399.]
	That is an interesting and, I suggest, incorrect answer to a question that I had not actually posed. The question that I asked was, how do we know that both pilots agreed? If one pilot disagreed with the route or with the course of action, surely that pilot was not negligent. There was no cockpit voice recorder, there was no black box and we do not know the conversation between the pilots at the time. I have written to the Minister since Defence questions in January, and if he is able to answer that question now, I will be, of course, more than happy to give way to him. If he is able to answer it in his winding-up speech, of course that will be good, too.
	But another possibility is that one of the pilots was not in the best of health in the final seconds of that flight. One might have had a heart attack. The fact that there was no evidence that either pilot had had a heart attack does not mean that there was evidence of an absence of a heart attack. I can say that, because the pathologist has written to me to say that of course he cannot say that, with absolutely no doubt whatsoever, neither pilot had a heart attack. That is not the way in which doctors work.
	Then there is the issue of technical malfunction. So many inquiries have taken place on this issue, but I shall quote one of them by the House of Lords Select Committee on Chinook ZD 756, which stated:
	Although no trace of any mechanical fault, other than a defective radar altimeter, was found by the Air Accidents Investigation Branch inspector, he was unable to dismiss the possibility of an undemanded flight control movement, an engine run up or a control jam having occurred. Any of these events could have had a serious effect upon the crew's ability to control the aircraft.
	The fact that there was no evidence of that happening does not mean that there was evidence of it not happening.
	All those things add up to one thing, and that is doubt. Therefore, I am grateful to Conservative Front Benchers for saying that, in the event of a Conservative election victory, there will be a review. I am grateful also to the Minister for saying that he is happy to meet me and the parents of the pilots at the end of this month, and I shall look forward to that.

Robert Key: My right hon. Friend's persistence on this matter is exemplary. Does he recall that ZD 756, the Chinook in the Mull of Kintyre crash, was refused flight clearance by engineers in my constituency at Boscombe Down, and that it was forcibly removed from his constituency at Odiham to Boscombe Down and, again without the consent of the controllers, from Boscombe Down to Northern Ireland in order to pick up the crew? That adds another huge layer of doubt about the decision to declare the two pilots negligent.

James Arbuthnot: Indeed so. It seems to me a bit unfortunate that the informed views of Boscombe Down should be dismissed in the way that some later commentators within the Ministry of Defence have dismissed them. Suggestions that the software was positively dangerous, which have come out since that date, are not suggestions that I rely on as being true. I simply rely on those suggestions as giving rise to doubt, and only in those cases where there is no absolutely no doubt whatever can deceased air crew be found negligent.

Bernard Jenkin: I just wanted to place on the public record the fact that as shadow Secretary of State for Defence in, I think, 2002, I suggested to the Government a process for trying to resolve the matter. That process involved setting up an inquiry with a retired judge, a retired military officer from one of the other services and a suitably technically qualified person to review the decision in order to allow the Government in a dignified manner to come to a conclusion about these issues, which cannot be resolved in the House. Why does my right hon. Friend think that the Government have refused to take such a course of action?

James Arbuthnot: Yes, my hon. Friend did make that suggestion. I do not know the answer to his question. I do not know why, essentially, senior Air Force officers have dug their heels in, but I hope that the Minister, when he comes to the meeting, will approach it with an open mind, because this is an issue of the greatest importance. It is an issue of fairness for those who have died in the service of their country, and there can be no more important matter for a Minister to deal with than that.

Ian Davidson: Defence is one of the most important areas of politics, and it ought to be debated fiercely, so I am astonished that the Opposition seem to have run out of steam. There seems to be no passion, fire, drive or urge for government, and we are only-what?-two months away from an election, so is today's debate an indication that the Opposition are preparing for another term of opposition? It certainly seems like that to me.
	I shall take my theme from the hon. Member for Congleton (Ann Winterton), who earlier said that she believed that repetition is a good line to pursue. This may come as a surprise to some Members, but I want to raise the question of the aircraft carriers in order to try to establish the exact position of the relevant parties. In ascertaining the official Opposition's position, I have to take cognisance of what happened last week.
	A group of convenors-shop stewards-from the country's shipyards came to the House to meet representatives of the two main Opposition parties. They met the Liberals, and normally I would tell people that there is no point meeting them, because they do not matter very much. There is talk of a hung Parliament, however, so on that occasion I thought that such a meeting might be appropriate. In the event that a coalition comes to pass, or there is a hung Parliament in which individual issues are voted on, Liberal support in those circumstances would be important, and the convenors went away gratified that the Liberals had made their position absolutely clear. They were supportive of the aircraft carrier; they would be prepared to support it in the event of a hung Parliament; and the convenors very much welcomed that support.
	However, the convenors were greatly depressed when they went to meet the hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox), who, speaking on behalf of the official Opposition, made it clear that the action that a Conservative Government would take on day one would be to examine the break clauses in the contract. Had he said to them, I'm afraid I can't tell you anything because it will take us six months to set up a review, and then a year to have the review, and then maybe a couple of weeks at the end of that to decide on it, so it will be 18 months or so before we can come a decision, they would not have been happy with that, but they could have understood it, because that had been a relatively consistent position; indeed, it was the Liberals' position until they accepted the strength of the convenors' arguments. But no, the Conservatives said that on day one they would examine the break clauses-no one examines the break clauses on day one unless the intention might be to apply them on day two.
	We are therefore absolutely certain that the Royal Navy and the aircraft carriers are safe with Labour or the Liberals but sunk with the Conservatives, or, indeed, with the nationalists, who would not build any aircraft carriers on their own.

Bernard Jenkin: Why was the Secretary of State not prepared to give the assurance that the hon. Gentleman has been seeking from the official Opposition?

Ian Davidson: That was my next point, because I want to consider the Government's position.
	Unlike the Opposition, when we look to the crystal ball, with the Government we can read the book and see what they have done. If the Government intended to cancel the aircraft carriers, they would have done so before now. They proceeded to order the carriers, and they have restructured the contract for the carriers. That was most helpful to the shipyards involved because, admittedly at additional cost, that decision has spun out the work over a longer period, which means that they will have no gap-no precipice-at the end of the aircraft carrier contract before further contracts arrive. As a result, there is no fear of the work force being dispersed or of enormous lay-offs and the like-lay-offs that would be almost impossible to reverse later on by trying to pull workers back. I recognise that the Government go through the motions in saying that everything is up for discussion in the defence review; none the less, it is perfectly clear from reading the book that they are committed to the carriers.

Quentin Davies: Let me make the Government's position absolutely clear. We are contractually, morally and politically committed to the aircraft carriers. On Friday, the Secretary of State took part in a steel-cutting process in Portsmouth, and I took part in a steel-cutting process at the AP Tyne shipyard in Newcastle, to demonstrate our commitment to the carriers. I do not think it is possible for a Government to make their position plainer than that.

Ian Davidson: I thank the Minister-that was very clear. Even the Liberals would agree that it was clear, because we find ourselves in agreement with them on this matter in seeking coalition support, and there is no point in trying to find arguments where none exist. We are therefore in a position whereby two parties are unequivocally supporting the aircraft carrier and one major party is not prepared to come off the fence.
	I cannot help but think that the Tories do not really have their heart in this. This debate has been extremely lacklustre on the Conservative side of the House. There has been no fire or passion, and no indication at all that they are preparing for Government. The collapse in the polls is echoed by the collapse in Conservative morale and commitment to this cause. I can understand that some Conservative Members who are making their valedictory speeches may not wish to express enthusiasm, because there is not a great deal to be enthusiastic about on the Benches that they are departing from. However, the most noticeable aspect of this defence debate is that this is an Opposition who have run out of steam long before the general election-and long may that continue.

Mark Pritchard: The hon. Member for Glasgow, South-West (Mr. Davidson) may not have given an enthusiastic speech, but what I am enthusiastic about is our courageous armed forces who are fighting in Afghanistan as we speak. I would like to pay tribute to them, particularly all those who come from Shropshire, including regular and reserve forces. On this St. David's day, I pay particular tribute to all the fallen sons and fathers from Wales-many have given their lives in serving Her Majesty's armed forces. Part of the strength of the armed forces of the United Kingdom is that they represent all the regions, despite the best efforts of the current Government to dismantle regiments from different parts of the United Kingdom. That strength lies in the fact that many of these people come from different parts of our great nation.
	I pay particular tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Ann Winterton) for her long and distinguished service in this House and her championing of our armed forces, particularly for their protection through improved fighting vehicles. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Robert Key) for his long and distinguished service in this House, including on the Defence Committee. Their contributions to these debates, which have always been enthusiastic, will be sorely missed. Perhaps what the hon. Member for Glasgow, South-West said might be a little bit credible if we occasionally saw more Labour Back-Bench Members contributing to these debates. As ever, there is absolutely nobody on the Labour Back Benches, and we certainly see no Liberal Democrats-no surprise there.
	Afghanistan is an important mission. It is important that the Government continue to make the case, with cross-party consensus, for this war. If we withdraw prematurely, it is absolutely certain that al-Qaeda and its affiliates and associates will regroup, set up their training camps, and bring their fight to the streets of Britain. Despite our being in this phoney election period, I wholeheartedly support the Prime Minister's comments on this war, because it is not a party political issue: it is a question of nation before party and national security before party politics. I endorse the Prime Minister's stance on that issue, as do our Conservative Front Benchers. It is important that we win in Afghanistan, whatever the definition of winning is-we will have to wait and see. Of course, there will eventually be a political settlement, but that cannot come until we weaken our enemies further, so we need to stay the course.
	We also need to stay the course because it is important that NATO holds together. NATO is an imperfect military alliance, but it is the best alliance that we have. It has served us, pretty much, fairly well over the past 60 years, and we need to ensure that it is not undermined, as it would be if we withdrew prematurely from Afghanistan.

Linda Gilroy: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mark Pritchard: Very briefly.

Linda Gilroy: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the key to drawdown is a transition to Afghan responsibility, which will be welcomed by Afghans and the allies alike when it can happen?

Mark Pritchard: I completely agree with the hon. Lady. We all want to see in Afghanistan a stable, democratic Government who represent all the different tribal and ethnic groups within the country. That is the only way in which that Government will be sustainable in the long term.
	We need to stay the course in Afghanistan, because if we do not, that will be a huge morale boost to jihadists and extremists across the world. We need to be resolute, firm and determined. We also need to recognise that wars are not run on an hourly news basis or according to a 24-hour news cycle. Every loss is a personal tragedy for the families involved; indeed, it is a national tragedy. However, there has never been a bloodless war, and it is absolutely wrong for some parts of the media to suggest, when we are losing men and women on the front line, that we are being defeated, or that we should withdraw, or that we should surrender. War is bloody, ugly, dirty and unpleasant, but the sacrifices that have been made in Afghanistan are a sign of the courage and resoluteness of our armed forces, and more importantly of their progress there, rather than anything to the contrary.
	I pay tribute to armed forces from other parts of the world, such as those of Canada, which has suffered huge losses. I pay tribute to our Commonwealth cousins and hope that the people of Canada will similarly recognise the importance of staying the course in Afghanistan. I hope that the new Government of Prime Minister Harper will be able to make the case for ensuring that the troops remain beyond 2011.
	Similarly, I pay tribute to those from the Netherlands who have fallen. The Netherlands is a close European partner and ally, and I hope that its Government will soon be reconstituted and that, more importantly, the case will be made for the importance of staying the course in Afghanistan. The troops from the Netherlands are professional and some of the best in the world, and we need them in Afghanistan. I hope that the people of the Netherlands will recognise that.
	Mention has been made of improvised explosive devices. I hope that the Chinese Government will do far more to intervene with arms manufacturers that use the Chinese parts that form some IEDs, and to ensure that the border between Afghanistan and China is secure. It is a small border by comparison with those with other countries, but it nevertheless needs to be secure. We would not expect any help from Iran, of course, but we know that there is a direct link between Iranian parts and manufacturing and some of the IEDs that are being used. The use of such devices is cowardly, and it is another sign of the conventional victories of our armed forces over the past months and years.
	I mentioned rest and recuperation earlier and stressed the need for the Government to work harder to ensure that air transport and air bridge movements are far more easily available to our armed forces. I know that weather plays a key part in some delays, but as I said, constituents have contacted me to say that many of them are caused by the age of the airframes. It is important that people on R and R can go back to their homes in the UK as quickly as possible rather than be stuck in Cyprus or elsewhere. The Secretary of State, who is not in his place at the moment, mentioned the deployment of the new C-17. I am sure that he got a bit confused earlier and knows that that is a cargo configuration rather than a troop transport configuration.
	I wish briefly to mention Northern Ireland. The peace dividend for the whole UK and the whole island of Ireland has been huge, and we all want peace to continue and democracy and inward investment to thrive in Northern Ireland. I hope that neither the Government or Her Majesty's Opposition, who are hopefully the future Government, will forget in the strategic defence review the importance of maintaining troops in Northern Ireland to support the excellent work of the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

Nicholas Winterton: My hon. Friend is ranging far and wide, and I commend what he is saying and find no reason to disagree with any of it. Will he perhaps mention a subject that has not been fully mentioned in the debate-the defence of the Falkland Islands? There is increased tension in the south Atlantic, and it is important that the sovereignty of those islands and the principle of self-determination are maintained.

Mark Pritchard: As always, my hon. Friend makes an excellent intervention. I commend his work over many years as chairman of the all-party group on the Falkland Islands. He is absolutely right, and it is disappointing that despite pressure at business questions last week, the Government have still not agreed to a debate on the Falkland Islands in Government time, which would send a clear signal to the struggling and failing Government of President Kirchner in Argentina. There also needs to be clarity about what new military commitment there may be to the Falkland Islands, again to send a strong signal to the Government of Argentina.
	I will be disappointed if it is true that the White House and President Obama's Administration have taken a position of neutrality on the Falkland Islands-so much for the special relationship. It is a good job that the UK and the great people of this fine country have not taken a neutral position on issues on which America has called upon the UK to help. I hope that America will review its position. I also find it disappointing that some of our Caribbean partners and allies, and indeed Commonwealth cousins, have joined Latin American countries in suggesting that the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands and, most importantly, the self-determination of its people, are in question.
	I am greatly honoured and privileged to have one of the Combat Stress units at Audley Court in my constituency, and I pay tribute to all the staff who do such a great job there. I am concerned, though, that there is potentially a mental health ticking time bomb in the armed forces unless the Government do more. I have been there many times and met people from conflicts going back to the Falklands war, and from Iraq I, Iraq II, Afghanistan and other conflicts. There is no doubt that unless there is early intervention, post-traumatic stress readily turns into post-traumatic stress disorder. The Government need to consider that, and they need to ensure that when they include the national health service in the future treatment of armed forces personnel and veterans, they do not somehow pass the buck. Yes, there needs to be partnership, but it needs to be partnership that works.
	I have heard absolutely nothing from Defence Ministers about the Korean war, which is disappointing. They will know that this year is the 60th anniversary of its start, and that UK armed forces personnel fell in it. I had the great privilege of going to the 38th parallel two years ago, and I understand that there may well be a new memorial to commemorate the war. I hope that Ministers might be able to confirm that and underscore what this nation will do to recognise the Korean war veterans who did so much.
	On that point, I hope that the Government will set out their view of how the nation's war memorials are to be cared for and looked after. I pay tribute to Shropshire council and Telford and Wrekin council, which have set out on their own to ensure that war memorials are looked after, but the Government-perhaps through the Department for Culture, Media and Sport-need to do far more, such as considering how national lottery and other funds can be used to ensure that our war memorials are keep in decent order to honour those who have fallen in the past.
	The Government got it wrong on the Army Base Repair Organisation. Ministers wanted to lay off 900 people in my constituency. I intervened and said that the attrition of vehicles in Afghanistan and Iraq made it completely inappropriate to shut the organisation. It has remained open, and I am glad about that, but I am concerned that the operational efficiency programme set out in the pre-Budget report may raise question marks about not only ABRO but the Defence Storage and Distribution Agency, which is also in my constituency. Both organisations have excellent personnel who are committed and loyal, and I hope that the Government will not betray that loyalty and commitment.
	Similarly, there is much concern among civilian and military personnel at RAF Cosford, in my constituency, that whoever wins the election, the deal has already been done with regard to the defence training review. It is a privatisation too far, but there is concern that it cannot be unravelled or reversed, and that armed forces personnel will suffer as a result.
	I wish briefly to mention to Japan, which is a fine and wealthy nation, and we are grateful for its latest contribution of £5 billion to Afghanistan. However, we talk about emerging global threats, and it would be wonderful if there were a new debate in Japan about changing its constitution and perhaps playing a greater role in the security of the Asia-Pacific region. The case is similar with Australia. Australia's forces do a great job, and I pay tribute to Australian special forces and the country's fallen in Iraq and Afghanistan, but in an ideal world, Australia would do more than it does, and might even have its own aircraft carrier, despite its small population and relatively small armed forces. However, we pay tribute to our Australian allies.
	On cyber-security, which the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, North (Mr. Henderson) mentioned, I invite him to join the new all-party cyber-security group, of which I have the honour to be chairman.
	Finally, when our armed forces are fighting on the front line and showing courage, commitment and bravery in Afghanistan, and doing so much to ensure that democracy in that country continues, I hope they will not be denied their democratic right to vote in this year's general election.

Gerald Howarth: The hon. Member for Glasgow, South-West (Mr. Davidson) suggested that this had been a lacklustre debate. I take issue with him, because the opening exchanges between my hon. Friend the Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox)-as you know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, he has apologised because he is unable to be here for the winding-up speeches-and the Defence Secretary were spirited and feisty. In addition, of course, we have had five splendid contributions from Conservatives, none of which lacked any lustre whatever. Indeed, they were characterised by two splendid valedictories.
	The first valedictory was from my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Robert Key), who, as was pointed out, has given superb service to the Defence Committee, and indeed, once occupied my position as Opposition Defence spokesman at the Dispatch Box. I have been able to learn from him, although any mistakes are entirely my own. The second was from my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Ann Winterton), whom my hon. Friend the Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin) described as bringing a freshness to the debate. That is not entirely how I see it-she made her case with a stiletto-like performance on the need for armoured vehicle designs that are more likely to save lives than lose them, as she has done so effectively in the past, as has been acknowledged. Everyone in the official Opposition will miss my hon. Friends-although of course we will be in government by then-but we will look forward to their contributions from further afield. I am sure they will not hesitate to continue to give us advice.
	There were three valedictories from the Government Benches, including one from the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, North (Mr. Henderson), who is a regular in defence debates. In my experience, he always produces some interesting comments and is a great contributor. If I may say so, in a spirit of cross-party unison, the whole House will miss his contributions to such debates.
	Not a single Liberal Democrat Back Bencher made a contribution, but that is par for the course. They do not turn up for these debates. Presumably they are busy with pavement politics around the country. The hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Willie Rennie) did his best to hold the flag aloft, and was joined for a very short time by the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell). He generally contributes to such debates, and we are sorry that we did not hear from him today.
	The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, North suggested that such debates should not be too partisan. I am sorry, but I think they need occasionally to be partisan. The idea that the Government have not been partisan is rather wide of the mark. I have a rather interesting leaflet, which I gather is circulating in South Ribble. It has the very non-partisan title of , Vote Conservative And Destroy The Defence Industry. I can tell the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Mr. Davies), who is looking at me smugly from the Government Front Bench-before he makes his own valedictory and disappears-that that is a scurrilous leaflet. It says:
	it is a bit worrying that the Conservatives, should they get elected, are looking to scrap a number of Defence Projects.
	We are not looking to scrap a number of defence projects. We are looking to build a vibrant defence-industrial base in this country. However, we will have a proper defence review, from which nothing but the Trident successor will be exempted. The electors of South Ribble have a fantastic candidate in Lorraine Fullbrook, who I am sure will make a splendid job of representing them. Putting out lies on behalf of the Labour party will not help the Government's cause.

Angus Robertson: The hon. Gentleman is ruling out defence cuts under the Conservatives. Will he take this opportunity to rule out closure of important strategic assets, such as RAF Lossiemouth, RAF Kinloss and RAF Leuchars?

Gerald Howarth: We will have a defence review and all those things will be looked at. The question of force structures, as well as equipment, must be examined in that review, and that is what we will do.

Quentin Davies: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Gerald Howarth: I am afraid I will not give way to the Under-Secretary: he has not been here for the whole debate.
	This debate is about the Government's record on defence, but some say that we are making a mistake in raising that aspect, and I must begin on a positive note. I readily accept that the Government have spent substantial sums on urgent operational requirements, with the result that there is at last some impressive equipment to support operations in Afghanistan. All who have had the privilege of going to Afghanistan have seen the Mastiff, the Ridgback and other items of equipment in theatre. However, I am bound to say that some of that equipment is belated. I raised the question of protective vehicles with a former Secretary of State. As my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton pointed out, the Government were slow in recognising the kind of equipment that was needed by our armed forces in the field.
	In addition, there are some superb facilities at Camp Bastion. I want to put on the record-on behalf of all hon. Members, I hope-that the hospital at Camp Bastion is unquestionably one of the finest medical facilities anywhere in the world. It is a great morale boost to our armed forces to know that if they are injured, that equipment will be available to them and that that is where they will be treated. That is a good confidence-building measure.
	However, that is not the complete picture. For the benefit of the record and the country, let me set out that complete picture. This is what has happened on the Government's watch: the number of frigates and destroyers has been cut from the 32 recommended in their own strategic defence review of 1998 to 23, and we have one ship patrolling the whole Atlantic ocean- [ Interruption. ] The Under-Secretary of State for Defence, the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones), asks what I would do, but the fact is that I am describing what we are likely to inherit. It is as well that the public should recognise the way in which this Government have run down our armed forces while fighting two wars. The public need to understand that that is what the incoming Government will inherit, and I am going to help them understand it.
	One ship patrols the entire Atlantic ocean, and we have seen the effect of piracy in our sea lanes; attack submarines have been cut from 12 to eight; we are down to two aircraft carriers, with one effectively mothballed-it will not be restored to service for at least 18 months; and four infantry battalions have been cut, resulting in the overstretch with which all hon. Members are familiar. Cuts in TA training were reinstated only following pressure from the Opposition Benches: the Government were forced to change their mind and restore TA training.
	As we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Woodspring, £1.4 billion was cut from the helicopter programme in 2004 by the current Prime Minister, against all the advice- [ Interruption. ] It is fine the Secretary of State saying, We're about to order new Chinooks. That is very welcome, but if that £1.4 billion had not been cut from the helicopter budget in 2004, those helicopters would be in service in Afghanistan today, supporting our armed forces.

Doug Henderson: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Gerald Howarth: I will not at the moment, but I will try to do so later, time permitting.
	Manpower shortages across all three services amount to 2,500. Vital defence research expenditure has been cut by 23 per cent. in the past three years. Future equipment depends on today's investment, and that investment is not there. Essential Nimrod reconnaissance capability will be progressively abandoned from next month. There is a £6 billion black hole in the procurement budget, thanks to a process described by the Government's own adviser, Bernard Gray, as
	sclerotic and resistant to change.
	Severely wounded soldiers are having to go to court to secure proper compensation. So much for honouring the military covenant. I could go on, but I refer those who wish me to do so to successive reports from the Defence Committee, the Public Accounts Committee and the National Audit Office.

Doug Henderson: The hon. Gentleman and I have talked about these issues outside the House for many years, and we did so a few weeks ago. As he knows, the audience, comprising industrialists in the defence industry from Britain and Europe, made it clear that they did not believe that the Conservatives would increase defence expenditure. The audience asked the very question that has been asked in the House today of the Conservatives. If they do not like these cuts and would reinstate them, what other cuts would they make?

Gerald Howarth: The hon. Gentleman will know that we are going to have a defence review, and I will talk about that in a moment.
	Above all, as my hon. Friend the Member for Woodspring said, the Government failed, in the years of plenty, to fund their own SDR fully, creating a spending bow-wave of tsunami proportions. It is all very well the Secretary of State saying that the war has been funded by the reserve. That is not what he told this House on 15 December. He said:
	My decision to fund these enhancements
	the enhancements in Afghanistan-
	from the core defence programme reflects our determination to ensure that the Ministry of Defence is supporting the current campaign.-[ Official Report, 15 December 2009; Vol. 502, c. 802.]
	It is not true to say that the Government are funding this campaign out of the reserves. They are resorting to the core programme, which was never intended to be the case.
	On any analysis, this country faces lean years. The cupboard is bare and our capacity to meet the unexpected almost non-existent. Military capabilities that we have regarded as essential are being wilfully surrendered. With a public sector borrowing requirement-or national overdraft-of £178,000 million, five times the current defence budget and 20 times the overdraft inherited by Margaret Thatcher in 1979, restoring the health of the public finances will be, and must be, our first priority.
	The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, North said that it was difficult to predict the threat that we face, and he is right. Admiral Lord Boyce said in December 2008:
	The Government's hand-to-mouth, barely adequate servicing of today's wars pays no attention to the need to future-proof responsibility for tomorrow's conflicts-which are as unpredictable as all have been for the past 30 years.
	The hon. Gentleman challenged me to set out our vision, so let me do so. The world is becoming a more unstable place, with known knowns-to use the language of Donald Rumsfeld-in Iran and North Korea; known unknowns in Russia and China, and possibly in the Falkland Islands, as my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Sir Nicholas Winterton) pointed out; and unknown unknowns in terms of energy security, population growth, climate change and, of course, the inexorable rise of violent Islamic fundamentalism. There is also, as has been mentioned, the threat of cyber warfare. Against this international backdrop of unprecedented threats, what do the Government do? They bequeath their successor a broken society, a bankrupt economy, overstretched armed forces and a gaping black hole in the defence equipment programme. In the last dying days of this decaying Government, the Minister with responsibility for defence equipment and support is haring around the country signing up orders for major items of equipment just weeks ahead of a defence review which is intended by both sides to undertake a root-and-branch review of policy and force structures. Let me say to my hon. Friend the Member for North Essex that we need that review to establish the strategic concept of which he speaks.
	Through all this gloom there stands out one shining light, a beacon of success that rightly commands the universal respect of the people across the land and beyond our shores. It is called Her Majesty's armed forces. It is sustained in large part by Britain's world-class defence industry, which has to be maintained in order to secure operational sovereignty. For the benefit of the Porton Down constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Robert Key), as well as my own constituents at QinetiQ, can say that I add them to that hall of fame.
	If the United Kingdom wishes to retain the power to exercise influence in this uncertain world, we sacrifice those assets at our peril. For the UK to surrender its role in the world would have disastrous consequences-military, political and economic. Recovery of that role would take at least a generation, if it could ever be done. That implies exercising choice, and that is something that we shall have to decide once we have the findings of our SDR.
	The current catastrophic state of affairs is the poisoned chalice about to be handed by this Government to the next. The Prime Minister stands condemned as the man who since 1997 has squandered a rich inheritance from the Conservative Party, and a man who has systematically starved the armed forces of the resources they require to do the job. No last-ditch attempt by him to pose as the soldier's friend will undo the damage that he has wilfully inflicted on this country. He has to go. And for the sake of the country, of our beleaguered armed forces and of their families, he should go now.

Bill Rammell: In large part, we have had a good and constructive debate, and despite the political hyperbole, there is a greater consensus on defence than is sometimes apparent. I wish to start, as did the Secretary of State, by paying tribute to our brave servicemen who have lost their lives in Afghanistan in recent days. They are Senior Aircraftman Luke Southgate of II Squadron RAF Regiment, Rifleman Martin Kinggett of 4th Battalion The Rifles, and Sergeant Paul Fox of 28 Engineer Regiment. We are enormously in their debt for their bravery, their dedication and their professionalism, and they are fundamentally serving our national interest.
	The hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox) started the debate by saying that 9/11 had fundamentally changed the security environment in which we live, work and operate, and I agreed with him on that, but I did not agree with much else of what he said. He made the erroneous allegation that the Government have not matched those changes with funding. I could go through the record, including the 10 per cent. real-terms increase that the Government have delivered to defence over the past 12 and a half to 13 years, but for the Opposition's critique to carry conviction and credibility, they need to face up to the challenge that they are not committed to spending one penny extra on defence compared to this Government-

Bob Ainsworth: Probably less.

Bill Rammell: That is the truth. If the Opposition are committed to the same expenditure level, they could set out with clarity and conviction how they would spend the budget differently. Again, there is a deafening silence. As we observe the 26 per cent. poll lead that the Conservatives have mislaid, we see an underlying theme in defence and many other issues: their position does not add up. The general public want politicians who will deliver criticism, but they also want a credible alternative. We have not had that from the Conservatives in defence or in many other areas.
	There was not one word of critique of, or engagement with, the Green Paper that we launched a few weeks ago in the run up to the SDR. It covered the need to defend beyond the home front, the need for a comprehensive approach, the need for partnership with both the United States and the European Union, and the need for more flexible and adaptable armed forces. But on those critically important issues, which will inform the SDR in the early part of the next Parliament, we heard not a word of engagement from the shadow Secretary of State. To me, that suggests that we have not had a serious contribution towards that Green Paper and the SDR process.

Linda Gilroy: I might have missed this while I was out of the Chamber, but does my hon. Friend agree that on neither side of the House has anyone mentioned the role of civilians, such as cleaners, cooks, firefighters and logisticians? Will they, too, receive consideration in the Green Paper for the important role that they play and the important contribution that they have already made to the efficiency savings that I mentioned?

Bill Rammell: I wholeheartedly agree. There have been some frankly quite disgraceful attacks on the role and work of civilians in the Ministry of Defence over recent months. It is important that we place on record the belief of those in the military that they could not do the job that they do without the support of the civilians.
	We then had an interesting debate, generated and led by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, South-West (Mr. Davidson), who reported on the discussions between the shadow Secretary of State and the trade unions last week. What my hon. Friend said about the lack of clarity or detail from the Opposition about their commitment to the carriers was extremely forthcoming. Let me be clear that we expect the carriers to continue to be a tool that we need. That is why we have signed the contract and cut the steel. That is quite different from the hon. Member for Woodspring, who in this very debate offered no such reassurance and did not deny that he had discussed with union shop stewards his willingness to look at the break clauses on the first day of a Conservative Government.

Gerald Howarth: I am sorry, but the Government's position has now been clarified: they expect the carriers to be part of the programme. That is what we have said as well-that, on current plans and projections, we expect that to be the case-but unlike the Government, we are clear that there is no point in having a strategic defence review unless we are prepared to look at everything and put it all on the table. Are the Government now saying that the carriers will be exempt from their own review?

Bill Rammell: I have made the Government's position on the carriers very clear, but what the hon. Gentleman outlines is not consistent with what the shadow Secretary of State said to the trade unions last week: that on day one of a Conservative Government, they would start examining the break clauses, item by item. That is a very different position.

Ian Davidson: Surely my hon. Friend was wrong when he said that there was very little difference between the two sides on many defence issues, because we can clearly see that the carriers and the Royal Navy are safe with Labour and sunk with the Conservatives.

Bill Rammell: I agree very much with my hon. Friend, who is an incredibly strong campaigner for his constituents and the carriers. The message that he puts forward is clear and precise.

Bernard Jenkin: Will the Minister give way?

Bill Rammell: I will make some progress, then I will give way.
	The shadow Secretary of State also referred to the leaked report from the Chief of the General Staff, but he did not highlight the fact that, in that report, the Chief of the General Staff rightly said that
	soldiers feel increasingly well supported and resourced on operations,
	and praised the
	medical care in-theatre and in the UK.
	The Chief of the General Staff rightly highlighted the challenge of supporting personnel between tours, but it is important that we look at those issues in their full context. To sum up the shadow Secretary of State's contribution, it was General Dannatt who, when he was appointed to the Conservative Front Bench, explained that he had been asked to contribute to defence matters because the Leader of the Opposition had told him that the defence team lacked expertise. Having listened to the shadow Secretary of State's speech, I can say that that expertise still seems sadly to be lacking.
	The hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson), who leads for the Scottish nationalists, asked why the MOD had spent £4.3 billion less than the population-based apportionment of defence spending to Scotland over the past five years. I have to say-he and I have debated this before-that his analysis fundamentally misunderstands how defence operates. We operate on a United Kingdom basis-that is the most effective way to do it-not on a country-by-country basis.
	The hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Willie Rennie), who leads for the Liberal Democrats, made several comments about the state of accommodation. Let me be clear-the Government have consistently been clear-that for decades there has been under-investment in the defence accommodation estate. This Government, through their commitments, are putting that right. Over the past two years we have upgraded the condition of 1,800 properties to the highest of the four standards. We are committed to upgrading a further 800 in this financial year, and 800 a year thereafter. This is not a Government who are speaking; this is a Government who are acting to improve the support to our military.
	The hon. Gentleman also talked about Trident and nuclear disarmament. He gave scant credit to this Government's record on disarmament. We have reduced the explosive capability of our nuclear arsenal by 75 per cent. We have led the way internationally. We are rightly and objectively recognised as the most forward-leaning nuclear weapons state. To ignore that reality-the hon. Gentleman shakes his head-does not do him or his arguments any credit.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, North (Mr. Henderson) said that his speech in this debate might be his last. I pay tribute to the work that he has done, having occupied my post in the past, and to the significant contribution that he has made to defence matters. He rightly highlighted the dangers of an overtly party political and partisan approach to defence matters. Indeed, if we look at Afghanistan, the reality is that if the Conservatives had been in government since 2001, they would have acted little differently from how this party has acted, faced with that challenge. To suggest otherwise-to accentuate the difference, rather than highlighting common ground-risks undermining our mission in Afghanistan.
	I also pay tribute to the hon. Member for Salisbury (Robert Key) for his dedicated commitment to defence over many years. Nevertheless, he criticised our stewardship of the military covenant. That was unjustified and wrong, if one looks at the service Command Paper, the doubling of compensation to the most seriously injured personnel and the improvements in accommodation, and at the free further and higher education. Those are not the actions of a Government who are resiling from their responsibilities and their commitment towards the armed forces.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Linda Gilroy), who has wide defence expertise and understanding, articulately outlined the improvements in the welfare package to service personnel that we have delivered, and for which I know she has argued.
	The hon. Member for Congleton (Ann Winterton) asked about the Talisman system. Talisman is a route clearance system, and part of our solution to the problem of improvised explosive devices. It is being used in Afghanistan now and is at full operating capability, including in Operation Moshtarak. It is important to make that clear.
	The hon. Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin) made an interesting and well thought out contribution, but I disagreed with him when he allied it with the hon. Lady's contribution, making the accusation that the Lisbon treaty would bring about a European Union army. That is absolutely not true; indeed, nothing could be further from the truth. The treaty makes it clear that defence provision will
	not prejudice the specific character of the security and defence policy of certain Member States.
	It makes no more sense to talk about the common security and defence policy as a European army than it does to talk about NATO as a transatlantic army or the European Union as a world army.

Bernard Jenkin: Will the carriers will be included in a Labour defence review?

Bill Rammell: We have made our commitment to the carriers abundantly clear, most particularly through the signing and the starting of the contracts last week.
	Let me answer the serious question that the right hon. Member for North-East Hampshire (Mr. Arbuthnot) asked-he knows that I am committed to meeting him and his constituents-about whether we could be sure that both pilots involved in the Chinook crashes agreed on the route and the course of action taken. It is clear that those pilots took over the route that was programmed and planned, and took responsibility. Once they were in flight, the critical factor in determining whether they continued to be of that view was the action of making the waypoint change on the navigation system. That demonstrates that they were fully in control of the aircraft at that point. The issue is serious, and I understand his concerns. I look forward to discussing it with him and his constituents at that meeting in the near future.
	We have had a good debate. As I said, there is more that unites us on defence than divides us. We are doing the right thing, and this Government have a strong record on defence. We have made unparalleled investment, and we should take that forward and support our armed forces.

Question put (Standing Order No. 31(2)), That the original words stand part of the Question.
	 The House divided: Ayes 208, Noes 277.

Question accordingly negatived.
	 Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 31(2)), That the proposed words be there added.
	 Question agreed to.
	 Main Q uestion, as amended, put and agreed to.
	 Resolved,
	That this House expresses its continued support for HM armed forces personnel and their families; notes that over 440 service personnel have been killed on operations in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001; pays tribute to their sacrifice; believes that the 1998 Strategic Defence Review (SDR) and the updates that followed the September 2001 attacks on the US have provided a robust policy foundation for the modernisation of Britain's armed forces that has enabled them to take on successfully the many challenges they have faced over the past decade, including the major operations in Iraq and Afghanistan; notes that the Ministry of Defence has brought into service 31 new ships, 63 new multi-role fast jets, six large transport aircraft and 171 new helicopters and provided the Army with a wide range of new equipment it has required to succeed on operations; recognises that the defence budget has grown by more than 10 per cent. in real terms since the SDR and that an additional £14 billion has been provided by the Reserve for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan; and welcomes the steps that have been taken substantially to improve support, medical and welfare services for the armed forces.'.

Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism

[Relevant d ocument :  The Ninth Report from the Joint Committee on Human Rights, Counter-Terrorism Policy and Human Rights (Sixteenth Report): Annual Renewal of Control  Orders Legislation 2010, HC 395 .]

David Hanson: I beg to move,
	That the draft Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 (Continuance in Force of Sections 1 to 9) Order 2010, which was laid before this House on 1 February, be approved.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Will hon. Members please leave quickly and quietly, without having conversations that would be more appropriate outside the Chamber?

David Hanson: The purpose of the order is to renew the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005. Sections 1 to 9 of this Act automatically expire after one year, unless renewed by an order subject to affirmative resolution by both Houses. The effect of the order will be to maintain the powers set out under the 2005 Act until the end of 10 March 2011. This will allow us, as the House will be aware, to continue to use control orders to tackle what I still believe is a threat posed to the public by suspected terrorists whom we can neither prosecute nor deport.
	It is important at the start of the debate to remember why control orders are indeed necessary and need to be put in place. In recent years, there have been a number of potential threats, significant potential terrorist attacks and attempted attacks on our country, and, indeed, on other countries across the world. Those attacks and proposed potential attacks undermine the very fabric of our society and our values, leading potentially to the indiscriminate murder of innocent people.

Tobias Ellwood: The Minister will be aware that concerns remain about the financial support provided to victims of terrorism as a result of overseas incidents. Will he take the opportunity to update the House on the Government's recent proposals and clarify whether they will apply in retrospect or start in January? A number of concerns have been raised by the families of people such as Will Pike, who was affected by terrorism in the Mumbai incident, and they are seeking urgent clarification on this very important issue.

David Hanson: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his contribution. I know that he takes a personal interest in this matter, and I appreciate that he has raised it not only today but on previous occasions. In the Crime and Security Public Bill Committee last week, I tabled a provision, which was accepted by the Committee, to establish the compensation scheme with effect from 18 January 2010-the date of Second Reading. If both Houses approve and Royal Assent is agreed, the scheme will operate with effect from that date for any potential future terrorist attacks. We obviously hope that there will not be any such attacks, but the provision will operate from that date.
	My right hon. Friends the Foreign Secretary and the Home Secretary are considering how to develop a scheme that will not be retrospective for events, but will certainly look at attacks that have taken place since 2002. They will establish whether any such schemes could be brought forward to help the victims who have ongoing disability or injury problems as a result of terrorist action. My right hon. Friends hope to bring forward proposals on that shortly, as I have said, but I am afraid that I am not in a position to deal any further with that particular point this evening.

Lembit �pik: I worked on the Northern Ireland brief for a decade, and every year I heard a justification for temporary measures. I had the sense that the Government were willing to introduce such measures, but almost never willing to repeal them. In what circumstances could we realistically expect the Minister to come to the Dispatch Box and say We now propose a repeal?

David Hanson: We tabled the motion because there remains a serious terrorist threat to this country, and we believe that approval of the order will help the British people to lead their lives more safely.
	About 11 individuals are currently subject to control orders, and only 40 or so have been subject to them since the start of the regime. We have to make a judgment, however, and our judgment is that the measure is necessary given the level of threat that exists. That level of threat remains real and serious, and since the last order was presented to the House, it has been independently assessed as being at an even higher level.

Several hon. Members: rose -

David Hanson: I will happily give way to my hon. Friends, if they wish to contribute rather than chuntering in the background.

Jeremy Corbyn: I am not guilty of chuntering in the background; I have been listening intently to what the Minister is saying. Following the intervention by the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit Öpik), will he explain what elements of the current criminal law prevent us from dealing with danger, threats and criminal activities to such an extent that we must retain rather extraordinary orders, which a number of us believe fundamentally undermine many of our civil liberties?

David Hanson: I know that my hon. Friend feels that he may not be able to support these measures with conviction. I will try to persuade him to vote otherwise, but I understand the reasons for his concern.
	We have to look at the level of the threat and at the tools available. As I shall explain later, there are individuals, whom we have assessed through information, who remain a potential threat to the safety of my hon. Friend's citizens in Islington and my citizens in north Wales, who cannot be prosecuted because there is not enough evidence-although we believe them to be a threat-and whom we cannot deport, either because of the human rights record of the countries to which they might be deported or because they are British citizens. That judgment must be made. I accept that my hon. Friend may disagree-although I hope to persuade him not to-but the powers available to us are not sufficient to enable us to act in a way that would not potentially damage the security of the nation.

Diane Abbott: Is that not a fundamental contradiction? My right hon. Friend asserts that these people pose a threat, but then says that he has not enough evidence to prove it. Surely, in this country, people are innocent until proved guilty. If the Minister is so certain that these people pose a threat, why does he not press ahead and prosecute them? No one would argue with that.

David Hanson: That might be a solution, if there were sufficient evidence. If there were sufficient evidence, we would prosecute. On occasion, sadly, we hold information but cannot obtain sufficient evidence to prosecute, although we know that the individuals concerned pose a potential threat. We have had to make a judgment, which the House may or may not support tonight, on whether that threat remains real and serious, and whether this power should be introduced.
	We need to consider a range of issues. We need to consider how to police individuals in order to provide the necessary security; we need to prevent individuals from being radicalised in the first place; and we need to disrupt potential terrorist attacks. As I have said, our preferred approach when dealing with suspected terrorists is to consider how we can bring criminal convictions and undertake those convictions accordingly. Since 11 September 2001, we have undertaken 217 convictions for terrorism-related offences, and a further 29 defendants are awaiting trial as of 31 March 2009. That demonstrates not only that we are trying to prevent terrorism and disrupt terrorist activities and that we are retaining control orders for a relatively small number of individuals, but that we are proceeding with prosecutions, when we can.

Christopher Huhne: Surely it is exactly that successful record on prosecutions for terrorist offences that calls into question the need for these exceptionally draconian measures. The threshold test allows the Director of Public Prosecutions to proceed with a prosecution, even if the chances of success are less than 50 per cent. Why can we not rely on that flexibility, rather than introducing this measure?

David Hanson: I can only repeat that when there is sufficient evidence, we will prosecute. As I have said, there have been 217 successful prosecutions to date. Sadly, however, in a small number of cases we cannot secure sufficient evidence, but know that the threat exists. In such cases, we have to place some restrictions on an individual's liberty in order to protect the liberty of the vast majority of people in this country.

Christopher Huhne: The success rate of prosecution for terrorist offences is greater than 80 per cent., yet the DPP can proceed with a prosecution even if the chance of success is lower than 50 per cent. There is an enormous margin that the DPP and the Minister are not using. Why not dispense with these draconian control orders, and use that margin instead?

David Hanson: We shall be debating a range of judgments this evening. The House must decide whether it supports the Government's judgment that this measure is necessary to deal with a small number of individuals in whose cases the test of prosecution has not been met but the potential threat remains, and whom we cannot deport.

Lynne Jones: If it really is not possible to prosecute such people-although the use of intercept evidence ought to be an option-why not simply put them under surveillance? Given the small number involved, and the cost of the legislation and possible litigation, would that not be cheaper and more effective, especially as a number of those subject to control orders have absconded?

David Hanson: My hon. Friend has raised three issues. We are, in fact, considering intercept evidence. My hon. Friend will be aware that a group of privy councillors have presented a report on the subject to the Government, and we intend to respond to it before the general election-which, as all Members know, will take place in short order.  [Interruption.] I would love to give more details, but I do not have the power to do so. I cannot comment on the actual date, because it is not in my gift.
	My hon. Friend has suggested that we look into the potential cost of surveillance. I do not consider that surveillance would be sufficient to maintain the level of protection that I believe we need. The control orders allow for a number of restrictions ranging from curfew to not using particular equipment. It is not simply a question of surveillance.

Andrew Dismore: As my right hon. Friend knows, following the case of AF  v. the Secretary of State for the Home Department a control order was lifted from the individual concerned. Control orders were lifted from two others as well. Presumably those people are under surveillance as an alternative to control orders, without significant jeopardy to the public. Given that over three years £13 million has been spent primarily on lawyers and bureaucracy, and given that control orders now apply to only 11 people, £1 million would go an awfully long way towards providing surveillance for the individuals concerned. Surely it would be better to spend the money on police officers and the Security Service than on lawyers and bureaucrats.

David Hanson: My hon. Friend knows that a large proportion of the costs of control orders to date have been spent on defending legal challenges. The day-to-day costs of running control orders are nowhere near the investment that would be required to maintain that level of surveillance.

Several hon. Members: rose -

David Hanson: I am happy to spend the next hour and a half discussing these matters, but I am conscious that the debate is limited to that time, and I want other Members to have their say in due course. However, I give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn).

Jeremy Corbyn: I thank the Minister for giving way again. He has been generous, but I think that this is an important discussion.
	Many Members on both sides of the House represent inner urban areas containing a multi-ethnic population, including a large Muslim population. We have all worked hard to establish a sense of inclusion in that community, but the perception of executive control and possible detention has a seriously corrosive effect on community relations, and on trust between the local communities and the police. I know that the Minister's Department is concerned about that. What studies have been carried out on the issue?

David Hanson: We are constantly monitoring the impact on community confidence of a range of Government actions. Through the Prevent and Contest agendas, we are looking at how we can ensure that we both protect communities across the board and maintain the confidence of communities with a very high Muslim population, because that is important in helping us protect the general public, including people of the Muslim faith, from indiscriminate attack from terrorist activity.

David Heath: rose-

Lembit �pik: rose-

David Hanson: I shall give way to both colleagues, but then I would like to make some progress, because I want the other Front-Bench spokespeople to have their say and because I will have the chance to respond in due course.

David Heath: I am very grateful to the Minister for giving way; he is helping the debate by allowing these interventions. He has responded to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh (Chris Huhne) that the threshold for prosecution has been brought down, but it has not yet been mentioned that, in addition to that, this Parliament has granted to the Government a broad palette of lower order offences, such as acts preparatory to terrorism and glorification. Given that panoply of new legislation on terrorism, is the Minister really saying there might be circumstances in which Parliament has not granted a sufficient breadth of offences and sufficient latitude in prosecution policy to allow him to trust the courts to do the job that, at the moment, he is reserving to the Executive?

David Hanson: Let me remind the hon. Gentleman that it is not only the Executive: all these orders have to be judicially approved, and all of them are subject to review by Lord Carlile. It is therefore not true to say this is simply a matter for the Executive, because judicial involvement is important. I accept that the hon. Gentleman has very strong views on these issues, but I nevertheless believe that these provisions are a valuable tool in helping the Government to protect the public from terrorist activity.

Lembit �pik: I promise not to intervene on the Minister again, but I remind him that two of my constituents were charged with assisting terrorism, even though it was patently obvious to me that the charges were ludicrous. The Government spent a great deal of money on the case. I had to go and testify in their defence myself, and they were found innocent. If the Government can commit such enormous resources through the legal process against people who are innocent, how can the Minister possibly justify the randomness of having these control orders as a convenient aside?

David Hanson: I am unclear whether the hon. Gentleman's constituents were subject to potential control orders, but if they were just charged with terrorist offences and found innocent, the matter took place through the legal framework and was ultimately tested in a court of law.
	The position with regard to control orders is that, following the recent Lords judgment, we have to disclose portions of the evidence that we hold against individuals to their advocates, and ultimately that still has to be tested by judicial oversight. The fact of the matter is, however, that we have made the judgment that in certain circumstances the threat is so severe that this regime should be continued-although it is clear from the contributions to the debate so far that that will be tested by this House, and it will also go to another place later this week.
	My contention is that we should continue with this regime, and we need to look at the reasons for that. We are looking at the Prevent programme, disruption, policing and the use of intercept evidence, and we are considering how ways of supporting the forces of law and order can be used to maintain a reduction in the terrorist threat. I believe that if almost any Member were the Minister with responsibility for this and they received advice saying, We can't prosecute, but we believe this individual is involved in activity that is detrimental to their fellow citizens, they would take the same action that the Government have taken today. I believe that almost all Members would, if faced with the decisions we have to take, support the use of this order.

David Winnick: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for being so generous in giving way; indeed, it would be horrifying if there were hardly any interventions in a debate on such a subject. While recognising the dilemma that he has just spoken about and having no doubt there remains an acute terrorist danger-not a single person present either in the Chamber or outside would challenge that-can we take it that when this order is approved, as it most certainly will be later, if we still have a Labour Government next year there will be a genuine attempt to find alternatives to what most of us consider to be a very unhappy situation in respect of control orders, which are an infringement of traditional British liberties?

David Hanson: One of the reasons why we have an annual debate on these orders is so that we can assess annually whether this order is required, and, if so, whether it is required in the same form as 12 months previously. I have to say to my hon. Friend that one of the things that has changed in the past 12 months has been the level of the threat to the United Kingdom as a whole, and therefore we believe that this order is still required. There are still 11 individuals currently on control orders; we believe that this is a necessary power; and I hope that I have convinced Members on both sides of the House of the case for it.
	We want to improve our ability to prosecute and deport; we want to ensure that, where we can, we take action through the courts; we want to ensure successful prosecutions; we want to ensure deportations; and we want to ensure effective policing. Sadly, however, there is a small group of suspected terrorists whom we cannot prosecute or deport, and these control orders are intended to protect the public from the risk posed by such individuals. I must also say to those hon. Friends who have concerns on these matters that these control orders are applied irrespective of nationality, ethnicity or religion; decisions on them are based on an assessment of the threat an individual poses to citizens of this country-they are based on national security considerations.
	Over the past five years, these orders have proved to be a valuable tool in the fight against terrorism. As I have said, they are not imposed arbitrarily-a judge must agree that they are necessary and proportionate. Neither are they imposed widely-there are currently only 11 of them in force, and only 46 individuals have ever been subject to a control order.
	As hon. Members know, over the past year there have been developments in another place relating to the judgment on AF and others and in light of the Strasbourg judgment on A and others, where the Law Lords concluded that in order for control order proceedings to be compatible with article 6 of the European convention on human rights, the controlled person must be given sufficient information about the allegations against him or her to enable him or her to give effective instructions to the special advocate. That has caused the Government some difficulty; it has raised some concerns to which we have had to respond, but we believe that the balance has to be in favour of protecting the public from terrorism perpetrated by such individuals, and we would not disclose sensitive information that would harm national security. Our view is that the control order regime remains viable. Although there are difficulties, we will continue to use this regime if both Houses support it.

John McDonnell: May I just ask a simple question? Why has relocation been increasingly used as part of the control order regime?

David Hanson: Relocation is an important issue. I accept and understand that that causes difficulties. The key issue, however, is that sometimes an individual is subject to a control order simply because they remain a threat because of their geographical location. If we move them from that geographical location, the threat they pose diminishes and in due course that helps them to have more positive inputs in their life and, potentially, to return to their native area having been deradicalised. Because of that, we occasionally move people from their home areas. We offer support for that, however. If the orders are approved, relocation will remain one of the tools that we might use so that this regime has successful outcomes.

Harry Cohen: I was not clear about the point that the Minister was making before my hon. Friend's intervention. In the other place, there was discussion of the person subject to the control order having enough information for their advocate to make representations, and the Minister then talked about national security, saying that it was difficult for the Government, but that national security considerations would apply. Do the Government accept the decision of the other place, which would mean that everybody would get enough information about what they are being charged with, or not?

David Hanson: We have to ensure that we examine how we comply with those judgments. We supply information relating to the evidence as far as we can, but there may be occasions when to do so would compromise wider national security issues, so we need to make judgments about that, too. I believe that the control order regime that I have brought before the House today is compliant with human rights, will meet the requirements of another place and the Law Lords, and will meet our obligations under the European convention on human rights and in respect of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which is chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore).

Andrew Dismore: indicated dissent.

David Hanson: There is an honest disagreement between us, but I believe that this regime meets the human rights obligations that this Government have proudly committed themselves to achieving.
	So far under the order only two control orders have been revoked on article 6 grounds without being replaced by new orders. The High Court has indeed upheld four control orders since the House of Lords judgment, following proceedings that were compliant with the test laid down in the cases of AF and others. The Government therefore remain of the view that the regime remains viable. Lord Carlile's most recent report on control orders reaches the same conclusion, and he will continue to monitor our activity accordingly.  [Interruption.] I did not catch what the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis) said, but I am sure it was complimentary.
	Lord Carlile's 2009 report made clear his view that the control order regime was largely effective. His 2010 report examined individual cases in greater detail and he has concluded that three orders have
	substantially reduced the present danger
	posed by individuals. Indeed, in one case he concluded that the control order is an effective intervention.
	I accept that people have concerns and real objections, and that the rest of this debate will undoubtedly involve the Opposition, the Liberal Democrats and Labour Back Benchers who feel strongly about these issues rehearsing those objections effectively and strongly. However, I maintain that the orders are a necessary part of our response to terrorism. I again cite Lord Carlile, who has said that
	it is my view and advice that abandoning the control orders system entirely would have a damaging effect on national security. There is no better means of dealing with the serious and continuing risk posed by some individuals.
	He is overseeing this system, so judicial oversight is in place. His view is shared by the intelligence services commissioner, the director general of the Security Service and by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary. I wish to place on record my thanks to Lord Carlile for this report and to commend the order to the House.

Crispin Blunt: I wish to begin by sharing the Minister's analysis that there can be no complacency about the nature of the terrorist threat. Nobody on the Conservative Benches underestimates the threat we face. The fact that the joint terrorism analysis centre raised the threat level from substantial to severe on 22 January-although that was announced by the Home Secretary, it was an operational assessment in which Ministers played no part-should bring home to us the need for constant vigilance. I also wish to add my tribute to the efforts of the police and security services, who work tirelessly on our behalf. In the past year, I have been privileged to meet a great many security professionals and public servants, and I have been constantly impressed by the calm and determined manner in which they carry out their responsibilities.
	Today, the Government seek renewal of the control orders legislation for the fifth successive year, and it is for elected representatives to consider that narrow aspect of the legal framework in which those public servants, dedicated to our security, can operate. Unlike those involved in the day-to-day work of pursuing terrorists, we in this House must make our deliberations without the benefit of secret intelligence. With the exception of a handful of Ministers, former Ministers and the members of the Intelligence and Security Committee, the vast majority of us will vote today without having seen the evidence on the nature of the threat-evidence that is provided by the intelligence which is presented to the Home Secretary before he seeks renewal of these extraordinary powers.

Jeremy Corbyn: I recognise what the hon. Gentleman is saying about the atmosphere in which we vote and the information that we do or do not have. However, I am sure that he recognises that a fundamental objection to what is proposed under the control orders is that they bypass an independent judiciary. In effect, they hand Executive powers to Ministers to bypass a normal independent judicial system.

Crispin Blunt: Yes, I recognise that, and we warned of that from this Dispatch Box when the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 was introduced. I suspect that the hon. Gentleman was in the Lobby with us trying to prevent those powers from being enacted. All the legal difficulties that were foreseen at that time have come to pass-that picks up on one of the points that the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) raised about the costs of these orders, to which I shall return later.
	We ought to recognise that the fact that most of us are denied the entire picture makes the decision-making process much more difficult. On this issue, I am sure that most of us would be predisposed to trust our Government, but the unhappy record of the past decade, ranging from the dodgy dossier through to the naked priority of political positioning in the debates on 90 and 42-days' pre-charge detention, has meant that this Government have squandered people's trust on security issues with the same abandon as our principal ally squandered the unimpeachable moral and legal high ground after it was attacked by the forces of mediaeval religious fundamentalism as represented by al-Qaeda. We examine these orders as the United States of America is setting out on the long process of trying to pick up the pieces of what has been a disaster for western liberal values-this is a disaster in whose costs we share and in which our present Government are wretchedly implicated.
	We are asked to conclude that although control orders are flawed, practically highly problematic, potentially damaging to community relations, extortionately expensive and legally doubtful, they remain necessary. Like the Minister, I am sure that this evening we will hear again the powerful arguments against control orders in principle-indeed, we have already heard some of them in the interventions on the Minister and me.
	In the corresponding debate last year, the right hon. Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz) was kind enough to describe my speech as a careful critique filled with passion, and he noted the surreal situation of a debate in which Member after Member criticises Government policy before going on to vote for it. Well, if he were to look back at the record, he will note that last year I was not with him in the Aye Lobby. However, he made a valid point and I want to make clear from the outset my party's position on control orders. We believe that the control order regime-I use English understatement here-is practically problematic and unjust, and we want to replace the system in a manner consistent with protecting the security of our citizens from both the immediate threat and the long-term threat, which will be shaped by how we manage today's threat.
	If a Conservative Government were to be elected, we would instigate a full review of the control order regime within a proper consolidation of this Government's counter-terrorist legislation. Following its consolidation in 2000, that legislation has received a decade's-worth of incremental additions, so rationalisation is overdue. The replacement of this control order system should properly be part of a comprehensive overhaul of the existing legislation that sits in the eight counter-terrorism Acts brought into law in the past decade. It is matter of regret that the former Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Clarke), was not able to introduce the consolidation Bill he promised when he said that he planned for
	a draft Bill that takes into account all the work that I have laid out, to be published in the first half of 2007 for pre-legislative scrutiny.-[ Official Report, 2 February 2006; Vol. 442, c. 479.]
	Part of the Government's proposition is that there is no quick fix to the problems that would be posed by control orders being scrapped, and that it would be irresponsible to remove them without alternative measures being in place.

David Davis: My right hon. Friend has talked about the problems of high principle with this issue and he is now discussing the legal problems, but I should like to draw his attention to one simple practical point. We were led to believe that thousands of people would be subject to these control orders when the legislation went through the House in 2005, but that has not turned out to be the case. Some 45 people have been subject to such orders and of those 45, seven have absconded. One would think that the seriously dangerous al-Qaeda terrorists would be the ones who would abscond, which indicates that this regime is not just flawed, but totally useless.

Crispin Blunt: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for generously promoting me to the Privy Council, which is, of course, not correct. It is impossible for us to come to the same conclusion as he has done, and in such absolute terms as he has presented it, but, of course, it is now possible for us to conduct that assessment with new information. Let me go on to explain how we want to conduct a review and outline the potential replacement of the control order regime.

Christopher Huhne: The hon. Gentleman is making the point that he needs time to assess these matters, but may I point out to him that his colleague, the hon. Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer), said in 2007, when he was the shadow security spokesperson, that those on the Conservative Benches would not support another renewal unless the regime was substantially improved? Let me quote him,
	we will support the extension with great reluctance, but we must put the Government on notice that, in view of Lord Carlile's latest report, we will not be able to sustain our position this time next year.-[ Official Report, 22 February 2007; Vol. 457, c. 443.]
	Year after year, we have heard that claim. When are the Conservatives finally going to draw the conclusions from their impeccable logic and decide to vote with us against these infernally illiberal measures?

Crispin Blunt: If the hon. Gentleman can restrain himself, I shall now explain the circumstances in which we propose to deal with the orders. We are now very close to having the opportunity to achieve a considered process, so the balance of argument has changed. It now runs strongly against our seeking to unpick the piecemeal and scattergun laws, introduced in an unfocused and unreflective manner, that govern counter-terrorism policy. For that reason, I shall ask my right hon. and hon. Friends to abstain this evening. As a party that aspires to have responsibilities in this matter and that might be quite close to getting them, we believe in taking a responsible approach. Our direction of travel is clear, a point reinforced by the quotation from my hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer).
	If the electorate charge the Conservative party with forming a new Administration, we will want to send a clear signal that we do not propose to defend our nation's values by abandoning them. As an important signal of that we will certainly seek a replacement for this construct of control orders, but we do not intend for that replacement to be introduced in a rush or in a piecemeal fashion. It is our plan to use the first parliamentary Session of any new Administration to prepare the work for consolidation and reform, including that of control orders. When that work is complete, we will hope to introduce a consolidation and reform measure in the 2011-12 Session but, like every other piece of legislation, it will have to win its place in the parliamentary timetable against all the other competing priorities. However, I see no harm in explaining our objectives now so that the House can understand the context in which we will seek to rid ourselves of these powers.
	Having taken into account the double uncertainty of the Conservatives' winning a majority and the new Prime Minister's asking me to continue with these responsibilities-I console myself that some academic study has revealed that 60 per cent. of shadow Ministers make such a transition in practice-we should not wholly discount the possibility that I might be back here in a year's time, in the Minister's place, with all the intelligence now at his disposal, making a case for a final renewal of these powers before they are overtaken by a wider review of all counter-terrorist powers. If that is the case, I wonder how many of those who will support these orders tonight will have reversed their views if they are then occupying the Opposition Benches.
	Having made clear my party's position on how we want to reconsider the current measures, I want briefly to set out why, in the absence of a review of all powers, we cannot support the renewal of control orders tonight and to consider some the alternative options that should form the basis of a review of the regime. As was the case last year, I anticipate that the consensus reached by the House will be that, to quote the then Home Office Minister, the hon. Member for Gedling (Mr. Coaker),
	nobody is in favour of having control orders if we could possibly do without them.-[ Official Report, 3 March 2009; Vol. 488, c. 735.]
	That view has strengthened since the Minister made that observation a year ago.
	In March of last year, three men under control orders-AF, AN and AE-challenged the legality of the orders to which they were subject on the ground that their right to a fair hearing was compromised
	by reason of the reliance by the judge making the order upon material received in closed hearing the nature of which was not disclosed to the appellant.
	That, as the Minister has told us, was declared unlawful under article 6 of the European convention on human rights-a view that was upheld by the Law Lords in June of last year. In the light of that judgment, the Government reviewed the 15 control order cases and in one case the order was revoked rather than further information being allowed to be disclosed. According to the noble Lord West, those no longer subject to an order will be placed under surveillance in the same manner as the 2,000 or so people currently considered a risk by the Security Service. That prompts a question about the merits of a regime that places expensive and cumbersome restrictions on 11 individuals while carrying out alternative forms of surveillance on 2,000.
	Most worryingly, the Government have built the regime in order to place restrictions on a tiny number of individuals who they say pose a significant threat. Yet, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis) made clear in his intervention, seven of those very dangerous people have absconded-and some have vanished. How can it be that, the last time the director of the Security Service gave a public number, it was assessed that there were some 2,000 individuals in the UK who were considered a threat and on whom, to quote Lord West,
	we are keeping varying close eyes,
	yet, of the handful of individuals deemed so dangerous that they are subjected to administrative detention in the form of a control order, seven have absconded? In his evidence to the Select Committee on Home Affairs, Sir Ken Macdonald went even further, calling control orders a mistake and stating that
	the reality of the control order regime as it exists...is that it does not work,
	before concluding that they have
	brought our system of government into disrepute.
	So, the Ministers who oversee control orders recognise that they are flawed and would rather be rid of them. Legal experts, including of course the judges who have so undermined the legality of control orders, think that they should go. This year, the Home Affairs Committee joined the growing number who state categorically that control orders are ineffective and legally dubious. I share the conclusions of the Committee when it says that
	it is fundamentally wrong to deprive individuals of their liberty without revealing why.
	There is no pledge to take steps to replace control orders and no undertaking to find an alternative that can keep us safe. Instead, the Minister for Policing, Crime and Counter-Terrorism is guilty of institutional inertia and, to quote again from the Select Committee's report, he is prepared to settle for
	sub-optimal solutions, rather than proactively reforming to meet ever-changing threats.
	It is clear, too, that the costs of control orders are spiralling. The Minister declined to answer a written question I put to him on the cost of the control order review group because it would be too expensive to answer-I wonder whether he would care to share with us now a rough and ready estimate of that cost? It is clear that aside from the costs to individual police forces who have responsibility for controlees, the legal costs alone are prodigious and are likely to continue to rise. More than £1.5 million were paid out in 2006-7, rising to over £1.8 million in 2008-09. Since 2006, the total cost in legal fees alone to the taxpayer has been some £8.6 million. It is perhaps surprising how many lawyers are opposed to control orders. Throw in the costs accrued by the Legal Services Commission and that figure reaches more than £10.5 million. Added to those figures are the growing costs claimed against the Government by the controlees. Lord West insists that control orders remain a means of managing the threat at a sensible cost, yet no Minister is prepared to come clean on the overall costs of what is clearly an astronomically expensive way of detaining people without charging them.
	So, it is clear that the status quo is unworkable and must be improved. How are we to achieve this? Again, the consensus seems clear. We have to find a means to bring admissible evidence against individuals to court. The independent reviewer Lord Carlile, in his most recent report, writes of one controlee that he is
	a dangerous terrorist who would re-engage with terrorism the moment he could
	whereas another is
	assessed as having been trained abroad in terrorist activity, and to have been involved in considerable terrorist planning and facilitation in the UK.
	To repeat the point made by the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath), who is no longer in his place, one has to wonder whether those cases have been reviewed in light of the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008, which made such training abroad an offence. The picture painted for us is that even with all the caveats there appears to be a fairly significant intelligence footprint and it is hardly surprising that there are growing demands that if the intelligence is that reliable, there should be a means of presenting some of it in admissible form.
	On the issue of intercept as evidence, it looks again as though institutional inertia is preventing any real progress. Time and again Ministers, lawyers and the independent reviewer reiterate their position that they do not oppose intercept in principle, but progress remains painfully slow. The Director of Public Prosecutions is the latest such expert. He has stated:
	Evidence obtained by interception would be of benefit to prosecution
	in respect of terrorism.
	The independent reviewer has repeatedly said that he is not opposed in principle to the admissibility of intercept. In December last year, the Home Secretary reported on the fact that initial findings showed that the use of intercept would not be legally viable. I share his view that that is disappointing, and I hope that when he reports to the House ahead of the Easter recess on the three new work streams that are to be considered as part of the Chilcot review, he will have better news to report.

David Hanson: rose-

Crispin Blunt: Perhaps we might get that news now.

David Hanson: The hon. Gentleman will know that there is an ongoing review following the Privy Council's examination of this matter. I hope that he will also know that in the original Privy Council report, the review by independent senior criminal counsel of nine current and former control order cases concluded that the introduction of intercept as evidence would not have enabled a prosecution to be brought in any of those cases. So, although it is an important issue to examine, it would not be a panacea in terms of securing convictions in any such cases.

Crispin Blunt: As the Minister well knows, there are far wider arguments than those regarding control orders about the use of intercept as evidence. We should at least consider explicitly revisiting the terms of the Chilcot review, particularly regarding the requirement for intercept as evidence to be operationally workable, because such conditions might be too onerous to achieve the desired outcome-an outcome that is in line with our core values as a parliamentary democracy operating under the rule of law. I hope that a review of those operational requirements is now taking place implicitly. Without access to the intelligence and to information about the methods, it is difficult to draw a considered conclusion on intercept, but I want to take this opportunity to signal that we remain of the view that the potential benefits are so substantial that serious work must continue to be undertaken about its possible use.

David Davis: May I ask my hon. Friend to look again at the public dimension of the intercept review? What was said was that a Finnish case had introduced a new element to the matter that made things very difficult. I have looked at that case, in which the European Court of Human Rights intervened, entirely properly, because a grotesque injustice was being administered by the Finnish authorities-something that I hope that we would not do. As a result, the arguments against intercept that were marshalled publicly were totally wrong.

Crispin Blunt: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for drawing my attention to that point. It is appropriate to recognise the substantial debt that the House owes to him for the work that he has done, both when he was the shadow Home Secretary and since, to champion the values and liberties of us all.
	Finally, I would like to finish on a more consensual note, of which my right hon. Friend may or may not approve. Putting aside our arguments over the legislative and political response to the terrorist threat, which have produced some of the most substantial and impressive parliamentary events in what has otherwise been a dismal Parliament, it is appropriate to recognise the administrative work that has been done to help to provide security for our citizens. Our current national security strategy has its faults, but, overall, the conception of the Contest framework and the establishment and administration of the office for security and counter-terrorism in the Home Office have been widely recognised as successful and those models are now being widely copied around the world. Although it is invidious to identify individuals, and I am sure that they would not thank me for doing so, in the privacy of a debate in the House of Commons I want to recognise and acknowledge the debt that our nation owes to Sir David Omand for the conception of today's security policy and to Charles Farr, who leads the office for security and counter-terrorism in such an effective and widely admired way.
	That successful administration also requires a political lead and in what is probably the last time that we will debate terrorism measures before Dissolution, the contribution of the right hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (John Reid) should not be overlooked. I tried to let him know that I would be saying these things, but, sadly, he is not present. We should recognise that his leadership and drive as Home Secretary made an important contribution to one of the more successful areas of this Government's administration. The nation is in his debt for his service. I think that it will come to be seen as a calamity for his party that there was not a wider appreciation of his abilities when set against another Scottish labour politician in 2007. I certainly believe that our country would have been better served had he remained on the Treasury Bench after June 2007. That has been our nation's loss, and it will be the House's loss when we lose his services at Dissolution.

Andrew Dismore: This is our fifth debate on control order renewal. There is a risk of temporary measures becoming permanent, and that is one of my main concerns about how control orders have developed. The Joint Committee on Human Rights, which I chair, accepts that there is a positive obligation on the state to protect us all against terrorism, but it is becoming increasingly clear, year on year, that the system is unfair, not compliant with the European convention on human rights, counter-productive, and now, in our view, unsustainable.
	For years I have set out my Committee's reservations about the lack of procedural justice, and have on various occasions proposed amendments to counter-terrorism legislation. However, I shall start on a slightly different tack tonight. I want to talk about the impact of control orders on the individuals concerned. Our inquiry heard evidence from solicitors who represent individuals who are the subject of control orders. One such solicitor, Gareth Peirce, who has had many years of experience of acting in terrorism cases, described the primary sensation of those who are subject to control orders as despair and feeling utterly impotent. She described how at one point, three of her clients who were subject to control orders were all in the health section of Belmarsh prison, all having been imprisoned because they were in breach of their control orders, having made serious attempts on their lives and having been left, either temporarily or permanently, by their wives.
	Gareth Peirce described the impact of a control order on the relevant person and their family as colossal. The whole family is affected by the conditions of a control order, which can prevent visits to the house without authorisation, as well as the use of phones, computers and the internet. I ask hon. Members to think about the effect of not being allowed to use a computer on children over the age of seven, bearing in mind how important access to the internet is for their school work. There have been repeated situations in which bright, academically high-achieving children have been in trouble at school or have fallen by the wayside as a result of such conditions, despite repeated requests having been made to allow them such access-even in a case in which the relevant man could not read or write English and was completely computer illiterate. In summary, the impact can be, and usually is, colossal on the relevant person and his family.
	We now see the growing use of a new form of control order-internal exile. Such orders have been applied to British citizens who have grown up in east London all their lives and whose grandparents, or whose wife's grandparents, are there. Men have been parachuted suddenly into Nottinghamshire or Gloucestershire and told that they have to live there from then on, as a modification of their control order. The women in such cases are treated with complete contempt. It is as though they do not exist. The man is told, Your wife, if she works, can find another job; she can join you if she wants to or she can stay in east London. We know that you can find schools for the children in the area.
	The effect on a number of families has been quite extraordinary. That situation might affect only a small number of people, but its contribution to what one might call the folklore of injustice is colossal. It is not something that other people in the community are in ignorance of; it is highlighted because of the perception of the extent of the injustice, so it has a wide effect. Of the 12 controlees-now 11, we are told-eight have been required to relocate, but two of those relocation conditions were subsequently overturned by the court.
	It seems that the use of that condition is becoming more frequent in relation to the so-called light-touch control orders. Of the 45 original control orders, only 17 were required to relocate, so the proportion is much higher now than before. The same tactic was used under apartheid in South Africa, but it did not do any good. It was used by Tsarists in Russia, but it did not do them any good, and it was used by the colonels in Greece, and it did not do them any good, either. Internal exile does not work; it is counter-productive and creates more problems than it solves.
	The Committee also heard about delays in modifying control orders. Another solicitor told us that one of his clients made an application for various conditions to be varied, among other things so that he could attend a college course, and use a particular dentist with whom his wife and children were registered, just outside the boundary of where he was allowed to go. All those requests were refused and an appeal was lodged in February last year, but it took until July for the court to hear the case. By then the college course was done, and presumably the man's wife had found another dentist.
	I mentioned in my intervention the cost of control orders, as hon. Members question their efficiency. Our Committee feels a growing sense that their financial cost has become disproportionate to any benefit that can plausibly be claimed for them. We have had a lot of correspondence on this issue and we have dug out the figures. So far, there is a running total of £13 million over three years, including £8.1 million in legal costs, £2.7 million in administrative costs and £2 million to the Legal Services Commission for publicly funded representation.
	That is just the start of the tab. The representation figure does not include ongoing cases, because the bill is submitted only at the end of a case. It does not include the cost of the compensation the Government will now have to pay in relation to cases thrown out by the courts as a result of the AF judgment. Nor does it include the costs of running the courts, bearing in mind the dozens of hearings-from the High Court all the way to the House of Lords, and now the Supreme Court.
	When we put all that lot together the estimate is enormous. Even on those figures, the amount is more than £1 million per controlee. Although the Government will not tell us the daily cost of round-the-clock 24-hour surveillance-because we have to assume that some people are under surveillance as well as being subject to control orders-£1 million must buy an awful lot of police officers and security service people. Surely, that is a more effective way of using public money than spending it on Queen's Counsel, bureaucrats and courts, and a much better way of keeping us safe than having cases trailed through the courts.
	I have already mentioned procedural issues. Time and again, my Committee has been proved right and the Government proved wrong. I want to deal with just one aspect-gisting. Last year, in the renewal debate, we heard about the case in the Grand Chamber of A  v. UK. The Government said it had no wider application and applied only to deprivation of liberty cases. Surprise, surprise, less than six months later in June 2009, as we predicted, in AF  v. the Home Secretary, the House of Lords said that under article 6 the same provisions for the conduct of a fair trial applied in the context of all control orders.
	Lord Phillips said:
	Where...the open material consists purely of general assertions and the case against the controlee is based solely or to a decisive degree on closed materials the requirements of a fair trial will not be satisfied, however cogent the case based on the closed materials may be.
	As a consequence, the Government were to review all current cases. What happened? The AF control order was lifted, because the Government did not want to give the gist of his case, so he is now presumably subject to surveillance. In total, six orders were revoked. Two were found not to have been necessary in the first place, which is somewhat ironic, if not insulting to those concerned, and one was lifted by order of the court. The Government lifted three because they did not want to gist, so two were replaced by so-called light-touch control orders.
	Light touch control orders are a whole new avenue for the lawyers. The Government say that article 6 does not apply. That argument has already been rejected by the High Court and will no doubt be rejected by higher courts as well, because the basic principle of a fair trial applies whether the control order is light-touch or more serious. We are now told that the Government do not intend to amend the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005, so we have an Alice in Wonderland scenario where the relevant provisions on control orders in the Act are now to be read as meaning exactly the opposite of what the Act says about disclosure. The Act says there cannot be disclosure, but now we have to read it as though there has to be disclosure, and the Government are not prepared to amend it to make it comply with what the House of Lords has said.
	In practice, gisting is not really happening effectively. The special advocates who gave evidence to us complained about the minimalist approach. They said that it was an iterative way of proceeding-giving a bit of evidence at a time. That is unfair to controlees, because they are expected to answer part of a case, then a bit more and then a bit more.
	We are told that the security services are institutionally cautious in how they proceed. One of the real complaints is that late disclosure is endemic in the system. We were told by special advocates that they were given great piles of paper on a Friday for a Monday hearing-large volumes of material that they are not allowed to take home, and which has to stay locked in a safe in their chambers. In no way can they prepare properly for cases. As was said earlier, the Government do not gist in light-touch cases anyway.
	Special advocates have real complaints about the processes. We have heard many of the complaints before, so I shall not go into them all again. They include lack of access to independent expertise in evidence, so there is nil ability to challenge Government objections to disclosure because advocates do not have the expert evidence to back it up. Most important of all is the lack of ability to communicate with the affected person after they have seen the closed evidence. There is even a problem in accessing previous court judgments and decisions, to find out what the precedents are. Everything is done by word of mouth and there is no proper way of proceeding. I have raised the issue with my right hon. Friend the Minister in parliamentary questions, but we have had no sensible answer.

Lynne Jones: Last November, a letter from my right hon. Friend the Minister for Policing, Crime and Counter-Terrorism informed me that in relation to the right to a fair trial:
	Control orders...legislation is fully compliant with Article 6.
	Is my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) saying that is not correct?

Andrew Dismore: Yes, I am. We know that in relation to the majority of control orders, the procedure is not correct under article 6-on the right to a fair trial-without the gisting.

David Hanson: rose-

Andrew Dismore: Will my right hon. Friend let me finish the point? It is a matter of great disagreement between us.
	Only if there is proper gisting-sufficient gisting to give the controlee the substance of the case they have to answer-can the case be compliant with article 6. Now we know, through the new process of light-touch control orders, that the Government are saying that article 6 does not apply. We say it does. The High Court has already said it does. The matter is going to the Court of Appeal, and no doubt all the way up to the Supreme Court and Strasbourg. They will all say the same thing, it will come down again and we shall be back where we started.

John McDonnell: I do not think that the Lord President of the UK Supreme Court could have put it more succinctly:
	A trial procedure can never be considered fair if a party to it is kept in ignorance of the case against him.

Andrew Dismore: My hon. Friend is right.

David Hanson: For the avoidance of doubt, I stand by the comments in my letter to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Lynne Jones). There is an honest disagreement between my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) and the Government's legal advice on the matter.

Andrew Dismore: My right hon. Friend makes his point. I simply say that in every case that has been appealed so far, we have been proved right and the Government have been proved wrong. Our track record is rather better than my right hon. Friend's-so far. I anticipate that the same process will continue, and no doubt we shall hear the same arguments about article 6 applied to light-touch control orders.
	Special advocates say that they should be allowed to communicate at least about the legal strategy and procedural issues relating to the case. They also say, and I agree, that they should be allowed to apply to the court, without giving notice to the Secretary of State, for permission to ask questions of their clients. As an international comparator, I cite the fact that that procedure is adopted in Canada-and it is sensible.
	We need to look at the special advocate system. There are no fewer than 22 different types of court hearing in which special advocates can be used-22 different ways in which secret evidence can be heard in our courts, from planning inquiries right up to the control order regime, and many other things as well. The system has grown like Topsy, and we need a proper review to make sure that the special advocate system-not just in relation to control orders-is proper and fair across the board.

David Davis: The hon. Gentleman makes a good legal case; he is supported by the judges and the Government are not. For me, however, the most important issue is a practical one: our agencies currently have great difficulty dealing with the sheer number of suspects that they face. Any strategy should be designed to reduce the number of people who are radicalised. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the policy will actually radicalise more young Muslims?

Andrew Dismore: I agree. That is the point I made earlier when I was talking about the impact on families. The way the orders spill out into the wider community is completely disproportionate, because of the sense of injustice it creates.
	Last year, when we debated the continuation motion, my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Mr. Coaker)-now the Minister for Schools and Learners-promised to meet special advocates, as had his predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, East (Mr. McNulty), before him. Neither of those meetings took place, so will my right hon. Friend the Minister for Policing, Crime and Counter-Terrorism meet the special advocates and listen to their concerns about the fairness of the process? Will he also involve the security services in the meeting so that we can try to reach consensus about what can be done to make the system fairer? My Committee recommended a forum for special advocates, the Government and the security services to discuss the issues of principle involved and see what can be done-not on specific cases, but to make the system better.
	Since the introduction of the control order regime in March 2005, my Committee has expressed serious reservations about renewal on all previous occasions-unless the Government were prepared to make the necessary changes to the system to render it compatible with human rights. We warned that without those changes, the use of control orders would continue to give rise to unnecessary breaches of individuals' rights to liberty and due process. Those warnings have been echoed internationally.
	Those many warnings have not been heeded, and as a result, the continued operation of the unreformed system has, as we feared, led to more unfairness in practice, more unjustifiable interference with people's liberty, more harm to people's mental health and to the lives of their families, even longer periods of indefinite restrictions for some individuals, more resentment in the communities affected by, or in fear of, control orders, more protracted litigation to which no end is in sight, more claims for compensation, ever-mounting costs to the public purse and untold damage to the United Kingdom's international reputation as a nation that prizes the value of fairness.
	For all those reasons, together with the serious reservations about the practical value of control orders in disrupting terrorism compared with other means of achieving the same end, my Committee has reached the clear view that the system of control orders is no longer sustainable. We believe that a heavy onus rests on the Government to explain to Parliament why alternatives, such as surveillance of the very small number of suspects currently subject to control orders and a more vigorous pursuit of the possibility of prosecution, are not now to be preferred. The system is unsustainable.

Several hon. Members: rose -

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. May I remind all right hon. and hon. Members that this debate is due to finish at 8.45, and that the Minister has a right to reply? I hope to be able to call all hon. Members who want to speak in the debate.

Christopher Huhne: Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker; I will attempt to be brief.
	I am always pleased to follow the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore), with whom I am in great agreement. I thought that the Joint Committee on Human Rights report was very informative and thorough, as one has come to expect. I was disappointed by the speech made by the hon. Member for Reigate (Mr. Blunt), who rather reminded me that when the Conservative party says that it is in favour of change, it is perhaps time to be a little sceptical. The historical record of the Conservative party's commitment to change suggests that it is usually in favour of change only when everyone else has already made it happen.
	The Liberal party's position on control orders is well known, and it has not changed over the past year. They are a violation of fundamental rights and an expensive failure to boot. What has changed is the Government's legal problem. The control order regime has been dealt a major blow by the House of Lords judgment in the case of the Secretary of State for the Home Department  v. AF, in which nine Law Lords were unanimous in their view that failure to disclose adequate details of the case against people subject to control orders breached their right to a fair trial under article 6 of the European convention on human rights.
	Control orders are one of the worst examples of the Government's determination to use any excuse to sacrifice hard-won and traditional safeguards for our freedoms. They are hugely illiberal, involving Ministers making decisions on whom to hold, they fly in the face of the assumption that all people are innocent until proven guilty, and they are imposed on people without any reason or evidence for justification being given.
	Just some of the punitive measures include electronic tagging, a curfew, bans on foreign travel, and as we quite correctly heard from the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore), a requirement to move, as well as reporting daily to a police station, a ban on access to the internet or mobile phones, the vetting of all visitors and the monitoring of all movements. The average length of a curfew is now 12 hours, and the maximum length is 16 hours. That is quite a catalogue.
	Those sanctions do not just have a dramatic effect on the controlee, but often on whole families, including young children. We must not underestimate the damage being done in ethnic minority communities to the good standing of the authorities in attempting to tackle terrorism. That is the human face of control orders, and it is unacceptable. The Home Secretary can comfortably sit in his Whitehall office, dishing them out, yet this example, along with many others, shows how control orders affect the lives of hundreds of people. The consequences are symbolic of the real menace of control orders: the cost to our hard-won civil liberties and our human rights.
	Control orders violate the right to a fair trial. The people under them do not know what they have been accused of, let alone what evidence there may be to support an accusation. That is the essence of Kafkaism. It is the bad dream, the nightmare: We are arresting you. We cannot tell you why. We cannot tell you how good the evidence is against you. But you will be subject to these conditions until we change our minds.
	Secret evidence is so convenient. Clearly, the evidence is not good enough to give those subject to control orders a traditional fair trial, in an open court, with an appropriate sentence if convicted. The standard of evidentiary proof required for the Home Secretary to have reasonable suspicion is much lower than that of being beyond reasonable doubt needed by a jury to convict. Perhaps I am old-fashioned. If there is not enough evidence to prove criminality beyond reasonable doubt, we cannot just lock up someone indefinitely anyway. But the Government get around that by simply withholding what evidence they have from the accused, so no challenge can be made on its authenticity or legitimacy and no appeal against the evidence can be made.
	There are no time limits. Control orders have lasted for very long periods. Some cases have gone on for more than three years, despite Lord Carlile stating in his report in 2009 that he does not believe that they should be used for more than two years. That amounts to indefinite detention. I ask again, as I did, sadly, last year-this is groundhog day-is that really acceptable as part of a supposedly democratic criminal justice system?
	It is not just the Liberal Democrats who have repeatedly pointed out the failings of control orders. There have been many high-profile court cases, not least over the past year, that inform and support our position. Seven orders in total have been quashed by the courts. As I mentioned, in June 2009 the House of Lords ruled unanimously that sufficient detail of allegations must be disclosed to suspects to enable them to give effective instructions to the special advocates representing them.
	Less than two months ago the High Court then quashed those orders and ruled that the controlees in question-AE and AF-could seek compensation against the Home Secretary. As Amnesty has pointed out, the Home Secretary's decision to prioritise the secrecy of the evidence over the security threat posed by those two men calls into question the very necessity and utility of the orders in the first place. Yet, despite the sounding of that death knell, the Home Secretary and the Minister still blindly press on, wasting taxpayers money on legal action after legal action, when they should be considering whether control orders have any future at all.
	According to a parliamentary answer provided in February, the total cost of legal proceedings relating to control orders stands at more than £10.5 million. As well as the money spent on defending legal challenges to the regime, the cost of policing control orders is extremely high, yet the efficacy of the orders is questionable. We have already heard from other hon. Members that seven controlees have absconded-a worryingly high proportion. Lord Carlile's report states that some controlees still manage to maintain contact with terrorist associates. Given those facts, how can control orders be described as anything other than a shambolic expensive failure?
	The only other common-law nation that has tried a similar system is Australia, and it now has no one under a control order. Surely, the moral is that we should dispense with this affront to our justice system entirely and spend those extraordinary amounts of money on surveillance-if, indeed, intelligence suggests that a person represents an ongoing threat to the security of this country.
	Let me turn again to Conservative Members, whose position so far as been, extraordinarily, positively Augustinian. Whereas St. Augustine asked the Lord to make him virtuous but not yet, the Conservatives want to become liberal and stand for the rule of law, but not yet. Every year a Conservative spokesman comes to the House, criticises the Government and control orders, and then goes away wringing his or her hands. That is not protest; it is impotence. Having heard the remarks of the hon. Member for Reigate, I have no confidence that the Conservatives in government would do anything differently. Certainly, their voting record does not suggest so.
	The Government may argue that control orders fill a gap in the criminal justice system, dealing with suspects who cannot be tried in a traditional court, or locked up indefinitely. None of that is true. There are many alternatives, and as I said in my intervention on the Minister, the conviction rate for terrorist offences is already high. The threshold text has been relaxed and gives substantial extra flexibility for intervention. We also support greater use of plea bargaining to encourage those on the periphery of terrorist plots to testify against ringleaders-and, as has been mentioned by other hon. Members, there is the option of introducing intercept evidence. Our colleagues fighting terrorism in the United States and Australia find it extraordinary that we are making such a meal of allowing intercept evidence to be admitted in court.
	To conclude, we believe that control orders are at odds with the fundamental principles of a liberal and democratic society-the right to freedom and a fair trial, and the presumption of innocence over guilt. As in previous years, we will not support their renewal this year, and we urge Members in all parts of the House to vote with us today to end these illiberal and ineffective orders. We must remember that we are fighting terrorism to defend the values that the House holds dear, and for which it has fought over many generations. What we must never do in fighting terrorism is to become what we are fighting-and that is the risk if we again vote in favour of what the Government want.

Keith Vaz: This is a very serious debate dealing with an important aspect of policy. I would have hoped that more time would be made available to the House to discuss these matters.
	The debate goes to the heart of the Government's counter-terrorism strategy. That is why we have control orders-to ensure that the public are protected. As the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Chris Huhne) said, this is a groundhog day debate. I have noted all the speeches. Not one has been in support of the Government. The Government will probably get their order, but not a single Member will say equivocally in the House that they support what the Government are doing.
	The problem is that much has happened over the past year. There has been widespread concern. I would have hoped for a better response to the question put by my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) to the Minister about the need for Governments to take cognisance of what Members say when the House speaks on such a serious matter-not necessarily in the vote of the House, but when the House speaks in such debates. The Government should not respond with the usual reply-We always assess everything all the time. I should have thought that that was the function of Government anyway.
	I hoped to have heard more about what has happened in the courts, rather than Lord Carlile being trotted out on every occasion, as if he is the master of the universe and therefore if he decrees that something is all right, the House should go along with what he said. Lord Carlile is a great and noble man and a person of great integrity, but he cannot be followed on every aspect of policy just because he agrees with the Government. We need something more than Lord Carlile if we are to be convinced otherwise.
	What an excellent speech we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore). As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), he said it all for us. There is no point in repeating statements. He rightly praised the report by his Committee. It is worthy of praise. Much of what I had intended to say was in support of what my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon said.
	The Select Committee report was quoted by the hon. Member for Reigate (Mr. Blunt), our concerns echoing the concerns expressed by Sir Ken Macdonald. It is a pity that when they are in office, some high officials do not say the kind of things they say immediately after they leave office. It would be very helpful for Members of the House if they were able to say that when they were in a position to do something about it, instead of merely agreeing that something needs to be done.
	The Opposition are in an odd place as well. They have promised a review as soon as they get into office. I should have thought that as they have been in opposition for such a long time, there would be a ready-made policy that could be put into effect almost immediately. However, I will not criticise the hon. Gentleman too much because he was very nice about my speech last year and quoted it in defence of his remarks.
	I know that the hon. Gentleman regards himself as Mr. 60 Per Cent. because of the 60 per cent. chance of holding his job. I was in exactly the same position as he is as a shadow Minister, not knowing whether I was going to get a job. I did not-that is not a good precedent for him, I know-and was probably psychologically damaged as a result, having watched Ceefax on the day after the general election to see if my name would pop up. I suggest that he switches off the television and waits for the call.

Crispin Blunt: It is a double improbability-60 per cent. times the probability of the Conservatives winning the general election. On a substantive point, the right hon. Gentleman should judge our proposals in the context that we will review all the counter-terrorism measures together. That is how it ought to be done, in a considered, thoughtful, reflective way, instead of trying to legislate in piecemeal fashion.

Keith Vaz: I shall conclude, because my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington is anxious to speak, and we have known each other for a long time, so we can share the minutes that are available.
	These are fundamental principles of justice, and people ought to know why they are the subject of control orders. That policy is central to the Government's counter-terrorism strategy, but why have it when the very people whom one has under surveillance abscond? It shows that there is a real problem with the policy.

David Hanson: There have been no absconds since June 2007, and I assure my right hon. Friend that we take extremely seriously those absconds that have taken place.

Keith Vaz: There were some absconds before June 2007, however, and the point is that if one's policy involves an order from which people abscond, one must think carefully about whether that policy should be pursued. Anyway, I shall give my right hon. Friend that point, because we are approaching the end of the debate.
	We need to look again at the issue-very carefully and very quickly. My right hon. Friend told my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North that he will keep all the issues under constant review. If my right hon. Friend is right about that, and he is able to return to the House with an alternative measure, I, like my hon. Friend, hope that he will do so.

Diane Abbott: I am glad to have the opportunity to speak in this important debate and put on the record my opposition to control orders. There have been many excellent speeches, and I cannot add to them, but I should say that, when the Government rammed through control orders in the face of the fiercest resistance from both Houses, they seemed to think that, by making them a temporary order for renewal, they could convince the unworldly and innocent that we would have a chance to review the whole measure. However, they were talking about what is happening tonight: a debate that is far too short, coupled with their earnest hope that the measure will just be nodded through. Unfortunately for them, some of us are not prepared to nod it through; we thought that it was wrong then, and we think that it is wrong now.
	Ministers talk piously and at length about all the evidence that some of us have not seen, and the evidence that they cannot take to court. However, they are really talking about intercept evidence, as other Members have said, and over and over again people have presented practical solutions whereby Ministers could use such evidence and prosecute people. I repeat that nobody is saying that people on whom the Government have evidence should not go before the courts; we object to keeping people in an indeterminate limbo.
	Ministers also make the point about judicial supervision over and over again, but let me remind them that judicial supervision rests on ensuring that a process has been followed. The judges do not examine the basis of the original control order, so judicial supervision is about process, not content, and it is misleading to try to mollify the House by talking about the involvement of judges. I shall not even discuss Lord Carlile.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) made the case effectively about the extraordinary internal exile that people who are subject to control orders face. I have spoken to people-lawyers and volunteers-who work with people under such orders, and one of the most shattering effects on the people who are subject to them is internal exile, precisely because such people tend to come from the same sections of the community. It is particularly harrowing for them to be sent perhaps hundreds of miles from their family or relatives into internal exile. Other Members have said that many authoritarian regimes have tried it, and it has not worked in any case.

David Winnick: I know that my right hon. Friend the Minister wants five minutes to reply, but in order to concentrate his mind and make him take seriously how unhappy many of us are about control orders, I must tell my hon. Friend that having voted for such orders previously I shall vote against them tonight. I hope that others will also reflect on the issue to make the Government consider much more seriously an alternative to the current system.

Diane Abbott: Control orders, secret evidence, the whole debate about extraordinary rendition-all these add up to the emergence, post-9/11, of a secret state that does not meet the test of the freedoms that this country has taken for granted for so many centuries; that is not effective; and that is undermining some of the good work of our security services by spreading disaffection in the communities thus affected.
	I would say more than that. If the emergence of a secret state is allowed to happen in this way-by that I mean not just control orders, secret evidence and what happens in and around the process of extraordinary rendition-then it is not just the particular communities that some of us have in mind that are affected: in the end, that abrogation of liberty will affect us all. In recent weeks, the Government have found themselves in the deeply embarrassing position of having fought to keep judicial findings about the extradition of Binyam Mohamed secret and then being forced by the courts to reveal every last paragraph. Yet Ministers still do not see where the post-9/11 atmosphere has led them in terms of going clean contrary to what has, for centuries, been accepted as the due process of law in this country.
	Control orders were wrong when the Government initially proposed them, they have been proven to be even more inadequate than some of us thought, and they are still wrong now. I will not be supporting the Government on this matter tonight.

John McDonnell: I believe that the Minister has waived his opportunity to respond. I want briefly to put a few points on the record.
	When we had this debate several years ago, the House was packed and the debate was incredibly controversial. At that time, the Government used a number of arguments. Their first was that these were temporary measures and that the full architecture of the prevention of terrorism legislation had not yet been put in place. We have had five years since then, with an annual criminal justice Bill of some sort and a whole range of other measures brought forward to tackle the prevention of terrorism. There is no longer an argument left that these are temporary measures. The other argument that Ministers always advance when they have difficulty in justifying a case is based on saying, We know more than you do because of the information that's been given to us by the intelligence services. That is the argument that took us into the Iraq war and cost 500,000 lives. I do not have the confidence in the intelligence services that other Members have displayed, certainly not after the cover-ups that we have experienced on the torture of prisoners and the collusion in the torture of people to gain information.
	As we have heard, we are talking about people who have been put under control orders because they are possibly the most dangerous people in the country. The situation then degenerates into farce when they abscond and we have a Minister making statements to the House and elsewhere to reassure the general public that no one is at risk as a result of their absconding.
	I want to place on the record-this might be the last opportunity to do so before the general election-my tribute to the work that my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) has done through his Committee in exposing the absolute ineffectiveness and injustice of control orders. I also want to place on record my respect and admiration for Gareth Peirce and the work that she has done in defending several of these people valiantly while at times being attacked in the media and elsewhere. Through her evidence-we have used it time and again in recent years-she has been able to demonstrate the brutality of these orders, particularly the new, lighter order of internal exile, and their effects on individuals and their families.
	I give the Government a warning: this policy is having ramifications across communities. We said that it would be a recruiting sergeant for terrorism, and I believe that it is a recruiting sergeant for those who are anxious about what is happening to their communities as a result of this illiberal legislation. It is completely counter-productive, and regrettably, we are rehearsing the same arguments five years on. Again tonight, hon. Members who are not even present for the debate will vote the order through, and it will have a direct, detrimental impact on all our communities.

David Hanson: I am grateful for the comments of my right hon. and hon. Friends, and those of the hon. Member for Reigate (Mr. Blunt), about the work of my right hon. Friend the Member for Airdrie and Shotts (John Reid) and others. I can only say-
	 One and a half hours having elapsed since the commencement of proceedings on the motion, the Deputy Speaker put the Question (Standing Order No. 16(1)).

The House divided: Ayes 206, Noes 85.

Question accordingly agreed to.
	 Resolved,
	That the draft Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 (Continuance in Force of Sections 1 to 9) Order 2010, which was laid before this House on 1 February, be approved.

Social Security

Angela Eagle: I beg to move,
	That the draft Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 2010, which was laid before this House on 27 January, be approved.
	The Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 2010 supports the action the Government have taken to help people through the unprecedented economic challenges that we are facing. It increases support for people on pensions and benefits by more than £2 billion, at a time when it is important that we protect the most vulnerable.
	The latest official data show that the UK economy returned to growth in the last quarter of 2009. While cautious, the Government remain confident about the future prospects for the economy. We shall therefore continue to support long-term sustainable growth and provide targeted economic support, as to withdraw this now could put the recovery at risk before it is properly established. By responding positively and proactively during the downturn, the Government have helped more people to keep their jobs than many commentators expected and helped others to return to work quickly. Unemployment is 450,000 lower than forecast at the last Budget, which shows that active Government support works.
	Prospects for the UK and global economy are better than 12 months ago, as Governments across the world have stepped in to support their economies. As forecast in the pre-Budget report, UK GDP growth returned at the end of 2009 and, supported by measures to stabilise the financial system, growth is expected to pick up through 2010 and 2011.
	The latest Office for National Statistics employment figures show that falls in employment continue to slow and that unemployment looks to be levelling out. While it was disappointing to see the claimant count rise last month, after having fallen in the previous two months, the number of new claims for jobseeker's allowance has fallen again, and more than 50 per cent. of people move off claims in less than three months.
	This order provides real help for people entering or returning to the job market, and will help to support the recovery. People of working age who claim income-related benefits will have their benefits up-rated in line with the Rossi index-the retail prices index less housing costs. So those who receive benefits such as jobseeker's allowance, employment and support allowance, and incapacity benefit will see the support that they receive increase by 1.8 per cent. from April 2010. It is usual to increase state pension and some other social security benefits in line with the September inflation figures.
	As a consequence of the credit crunch, which began in the US sub-prime mortgage market, we have been experiencing extraordinary global conditions. The retail prices index moved into negative territory for the first time in around 50 years, and in September 2009 it stood at minus 1.4 per cent. That means that those who rely on benefits being uprated by the retail prices index could have expected their benefits to be frozen in cash terms, with no increase at all from April. However, as the Government remain committed to helping the most vulnerable in society, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor used his pre-Budget report last year to announce an increase for key carers and disability benefits by 1.5 per cent. this April to help people now, when they need it the most. As a result, we shall be uprating benefits for disabled people and carers, along with statutory payments for parents and others who receive national insurance-linked benefits, by 1.5 per cent. from April. We shall uprate attendance allowance, carer's allowance, disability living allowance and maternity allowance, to ensure that they do not fall behind.
	As Members in all parts of the House will no doubt be aware, since September inflation has increased. The retail prices index for the year to January 2010 stood at 3.7 per cent. The main drivers behind that increase are the return from 15 to 17.5 per cent. for value added tax, the continued increase in oil prices and an increase in housing costs. Although inflation is now positive again, it is important to keep in mind the cyclical nature of the uprating process and the fact that inflation between October last year and March this year will be taken into account when benefits are uprated next year. In particular, when it comes to uprating in 2011, annual inflation to September 2010 will include the return to positive RPI inflation from November last year.

Steve Webb: But is it not the case that that is not quite accurate? The order that we are debating this evening includes an increase in child benefit, which will not be included in the figure that will subsequently be uprated by the following year's inflation. Although that is being added on a once-only basis now, next year's inflation rate will be applied to the underlying figure, not the figure in the order before us.

Angela Eagle: The uprating process applies in most cases to most benefits. However, the hon. Gentleman is well versed in the intricacies of the benefits system, and he can always find an example to show that what I have said is not exactly true. It is a bit like talking about what one ought to do in chess: it is almost always the case that one should protect one's king, except in the end game, when one's king can be the most aggressive piece on the board. The hon. Gentleman is well versed in finding out the kinks in the basic approach, which I have just set out, and as usual I congratulate him on that.

David Heath: That was a castling move.

Angela Eagle: Queen's side or king's side?
	Traditionally, the basic state pension is uprated in line with the retail prices index. However, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor also used his pre-Budget report to reconfirm that the basic state pension will be uprated by 2.5 per cent. from April 2010, which amounts to an above-earnings increase. That means that from April the basic state pension for a single person will increase by £2.40, to £97.65 a week. It also means that the standard rate based on a spouse or civil partner's contribution will increase to £58.50, giving a pensioner couple a total of £156.15.
	The Government believe that the most effective way of helping pensioners is to increase the basic state pension. That increase, which is delivered as a result of a commitment first given by this Government in 2001, will ensure that more than 11 million pensioners receive an increase in the value of their basic state pension, over and above the level of earnings. That will mean that pensioners will have benefited from a long-term real increase to their basic state pension of 12 per cent. since 1997 worth more than £10 a week. Increasing the basic state pension means that help is provided to more pensioners, with a more even distribution of that help.
	When it comes to additional pensions, the uprating of which has always been linked to prices, we faced a number of challenges this year. The retail prices index was negative for the first time in around 50 years. Also, one cannot look at additional pensions in isolation, as any increase in additional pensions feeds directly through to public sector pensions. Nevertheless, we looked at whether it would be possible to uprate additional pensions by the 2.5 per cent. underpin used for the basic state pension, but that would have cost the taxpayer an additional £1.2 billion this year. We also considered whether it would be possible to uprate additional pensions by the 1.5 per cent. used this year to uprate key disability and carer's benefits, but, as I have said, the uprating of additional pensions feeds directly through to public service pensions and to some aspects of occupational pension schemes. As a result, we are unable to uprate such benefits without creating unintended consequences for occupational pension schemes, and significant extra cost.

Nigel Waterson: Does the Minister accept that the intended consequence of these measures is that hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of pensioners will be worse off as a result of the freezing of the additional payments attached to many pensioners' state pensions? Will she tell us how many people she estimates will lose out? Does she also accept that the measures will save the Treasury-or rather, cost the pensioners-more than £500 million?

Angela Eagle: I do not believe the figures that the hon. Gentleman has come up with. The retail prices index for September, which is the index that we have used to uprate by prices, was minus 1.4 per cent., so zero is still an increase-although it does not feel like it-in terms of buying power. It is also important to remember that the 2.5 per cent. increase in the basic state pension goes to all pensioners. In the circumstances, we decided, because of the complications surrounding public sector pensions and the extra amount of money that uprating would have cost-some £1.2 billion-that it was right to hold additional pensions at a zero increase this year. However, the 2.5 per cent. increase in the basic state pension will mean that, on average, recipients in Great Britain will see an overall increase of 2 per cent. in their state pension, taking into account additional and basic state pension, which is 3.4 per cent. above the prices indicated in the RPI.

David Drew: The problem with the additional pension is that people always feel that the Government manipulate it to their advantage. Psychologically, this does immense damage to those people who stuck with the state earnings-related pension scheme and have seen the supposed benefit erode over time. That is why some of us, and some of our constituents, are very unhappy about this. They think that these measures will always be manipulated by the Government.

Angela Eagle: At a time of very great difficulty, we have put £1 billion extra into pensioners' pockets with the increases that I am setting out in this uprating statement. The connections to prices indicated that no increase at all would have been appropriate, but my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has stuck to the pledge that we made in 2001 that an increase in the basic state pension of RPI or 2.5 per cent.-whichever was the higher-would be fulfilled. I wonder whether Conservative Members will confirm tonight that their policy is to stick with the 2.5 per cent. underpinning for the basic state pension, which has been in place under this Government since 2001.
	For the poorest pensioners, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has also confirmed that the standard minimum guarantee on pension credit will increase by more than earnings from April, by £2.60 a week for single pensioners and by £3.95 for couples.

Lynne Jones: It is understandable that hon. Members should speak out on behalf of pensioners, but may I highlight the plight of people on unemployment benefit? The level of jobseeker's allowance is absolutely derisory. It will go up from £64.30 to £65.45 for those over the age of 25, which is half the minimum amount that a pensioner is expected to live on. For those under 25, it will go up to £51.85. How are people expected to live on those amounts?

Angela Eagle: It is true that our benefits systems do not replace a high percentage of earnings once one gets off the contributory level. Part of that is about work incentives and encouraging people to move off benefit into work. My hon. Friend knows that in many cases jobseeker's allowance is not the only benefit to which individuals are entitled in the circumstances of looking for work. I have sympathy with what she is saying, but these things have to be balanced by the overall cost of the benefit system and the effect on work incentives of high replacement earnings rates for benefits.

Lynne Jones: The Minister says that JSA is not the only benefit. Has she any idea what proportion of people on JSA get additional benefits, apart from housing allowances? The figures that I read out a few moments ago are the basic amount that the majority of single people on JSA have to live on.

Angela Eagle: I am happy to write to my hon. Friend to answer her question, as I confess I do not have the exact figures in my head at the moment.
	I was about to say that the increases in the standard minimum guarantee and pension credit, which are higher than earnings, will mean that from April no single pensioner will be living on less than £132.60 a week and no couple on less than £202.40 a week. That demonstrates a real-terms increase of more than a third for the poorest pensioners since 1997.
	The above-earnings increase in the pension credit guarantee underlines the continuing commitment to tackling pensioner poverty by a Government who have already taken 900,000 pensioners out of relative poverty and 1.9 million out of absolute poverty since 1998-99. In fact, the Government have spent around £100 billion more on pensioners since 1997 than we would have if we had simply allowed the policies of the previous Government to continue unchanged. While there is always more to do, we have finally broken the link between older age and poverty.
	The action that we have taken shows that returning to growth and pre-recession levels of employment will be the Government's first priority. That is why the recent employment White Paper, Building Britain's Recovery: Achieving Full Employment outlined the increasing support we will give to help those who have lost their jobs in the downturn to get back to work as soon as possible. It includes the young person's guarantee, which provides that all 18 to 24-year-olds still unemployed after six months are guaranteed access to a job, training or work experience, supported by more time with their personal adviser. It also shows our commitment to supporting older workers by providing more training to Jobcentre Plus advisers and access to specialist support from external providers to address older workers' specific needs. Our long-term vision for transforming Jobcentre Plus services will benefit all our users. As part of this, we will improve online services and set up new pilots to give jobcentres the freedom to deliver more personalised services.
	The package of uprating proposals we are debating this evening is worth around £2 billion for 2010-11. It represents significant and worthwhile help to those among the poorest and most vulnerable in society. It provides real help in a challenging year and more help where it is needed most. I commend the order to the House.

Nigel Waterson: Conservative Members naturally welcome any benefits' uprating so far as it goes and no matter how unfairly distributed. We want to see extra help going to our hard-pressed constituents at this difficult time. As a nation, we are barely beginning to climb out of the recession made in Downing street. The latest gross domestic product figures per head show that practically every family in this country is worse off in real terms than they were in 2005. What a dismal record. Many are much worse off, as the figures for pensioner and child poverty grimly demonstrate.
	The details of the uprating regulations show just how complex the benefit system has become, with different rates for various upratings, the retail prices index, the Rossi index and so on. No wonder so few people really understand the benefits system in all its complexity.
	All this must be seen against a background of more than 5 million people on out-of-work benefits, many of whom would very much like to be in work. The Minister mentioned unemployment, which is high. About 2.5 million people are unemployed, and, according to the Secretary of State, the figure is set to rise again by the summer. There is also the stain of rising youth unemployment. It currently stands at about three quarters of a million; and there are more than a million NEETs-young people who are not in education, employment or training. We face the prospect of a whole generation of young people who may never be able to find productive employment.
	We, of course, have our own plans to get Britain working again. We plan to provide support for the 2.6 million claiming incapacity benefit, to abolish the Treasury rule that prevents the Government from paying welfare-to-work providers using the benefits saved once someone has a job, to offer more support to the young unemployed by referring them to work programmes after six months of unemployment rather than a year-the period specified in the Government's flexible new deal-and to pay providers according to results, with a focus on truly sustainable outcomes.
	One of the features of this uprating is that it is shot through with some deeply cynical decisions. For example, the Minister referred to a 1.5 per cent. increase in child benefit, disability living allowance, carers allowance and incapacity benefit. However, as no funds will be provided next year, that amounts to a crude pre-election bribe for one year only, followed by a real-terms cut. If the Minister disagrees with that, I shall be happy to give way to her so that she can deny it in toto.

Angela Eagle: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would explain why he thinks that making a 1.5 per cent. payment available now, a year before it would otherwise have been due, constitutes a cut.

Nigel Waterson: It constitutes a cut because, according to the Government's own figures in the pre-Budget report, the money will not be available next year. If the Minister does not believe me, perhaps she will listen to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, which has said
	the 1.5 per cent. rise... is set to be only temporary, as the Chancellor committed himself-or rather, his successor-to increase these same benefits by 1.5 per cent. less than inflation this time next year.

Angela Eagle: I fail to understand why the Opposition think that bringing an increase-or half of it, say-forward for a year, and paying it for a year, can turn out to be a cut. It means that people will receive an increase that they would have received anyway-or part of that increase-a year in advance, when they need it most. How, according to any lexicon, can that be portrayed as a cut?

Nigel Waterson: I have to tell the Minister that, in the real world out there, people will see it as a cut. Having received 1.5 per cent. this year, they will not receive it next year; in fact, they will receive 1.5 per cent. less. We think that that was a deeply cynical move by a discredited Government on their last legs.
	It gets worse. Let us consider the Government's treatment of pensioners. With a great fanfare, the Chancellor announced in the pre-Budget report that despite the RPI figures then applying, there would be a 2.5 per cent. rise in the state pension. As always with this Government, however, it pays to read the small print. Following the PBR, it was revealed-by the Minister herself, I believe-that the rise would not actually apply to many pensioners' real incomes. As Age Concern and Help the Aged-or Age UK, as we must get used to calling them-said in their briefing for the debate,
	While we are pleased that the basic pension will increase by 2.5 per cent., most people see their state pension as a single entitlement and do not distinguish between the different parts.
	The hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) made that point a moment ago. The briefing continues:
	Since the pre-Budget report we have been receiving complaints from people who will be affected by this decision and the numbers are increasing as more people become aware that the commitment to uprate the state pension only applies to the basic pension.

Angela Eagle: In respect of the 2009 pre-Budget report, it was stated:
	The 2009 Pre-Budget Report announces further Government action to provide support for households during the early stages of economic recovery, including increasing the basic State Pension by 2.5 per cent..

Nigel Waterson: The hon. Lady obviously missed her vocation; she should have been a lawyer.  [Interruption.] I am sorry, that is her sister-the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, the hon. Member for Liverpool, Garston (Maria Eagle)-so it is obviously in the genes. However, as the hon. Member for Stroud said, people do not make the distinction that has been alluded to. Instead, they look at their total state pension income, and many of them have been taken by surprise. All the Minister need do is take into account what Age Concern and Help the Aged have to say, or listen to programmes such as Money Box Live, in order to know the depth of the anger, frustration and disappointment felt by many pensioners on learning that they have been cynically cheated of part of the increase they had expected to receive.
	While I am reading quotes from Age Concern and Help the Aged, may I make another point, which is of relevance to the intervention from the hon. Member for Northavon (Steve Webb)? Those organisations go on to say that
	although the RPI was negative in September 2009 older people who contact us say they have not noticed any reductions in their everyday bills. This is unsurprising given a major contributing factor to the fall in the RPI was a reduction in mortgage interest payments which has no impact on the spending of most retired people.
	I endorse that pertinent comment on the application of different inflation rates to pensions increases. Yet again, this year, like every other year, this Government ducked a decision on linking the state pension with earnings. As Mr. Andrew Harrop, head of policy at Age Concern and Help the Aged, said:
	The Government has missed a golden opportunity to promise to restore the link between Basic State Pension and earnings by 2012. Sliding beyond this date will plunge an additional 70,000 pensioners into poverty, saving relatively little for the Government-an estimated £250 million a year after 2012.

Steve Webb: The Leader of the Opposition said in his speech at the weekend that the Conservatives would pay for the earnings link by raising the pension age for men in 2016. One might have read that to mean that the Government-in-waiting-the Conservative party-will not restore the earnings link until 2016. Is that a correct understanding of what he said?

Nigel Waterson: No.

Angela Eagle: Will the hon. Gentleman at least admit that we have actually increased the basic state pension and pensions overall by above the increase in earnings this year, as the rise in earnings is lower than 2.5 per cent., so the earnings link this year would have been less generous than the increase we are debating tonight?

Nigel Waterson: Well, that is an interesting intervention on two levels, is it not? First, it is an Alice in Wonderland intervention because the Minister seems to be trying to take credit for the fact that, as a result of Government policies, the bombed-out economy has meant that earnings have contracted not increased, thus, somehow the Government are being more generous to pensioners. She will not be allowed to get away with that. Secondly, is it not part of Labour party mythology that the wicked Tories broke the earnings link in 1980? Surely she would recognise that there have been any number of years between then and now when precisely what she said just now applied. She really cannot have it both ways.
	I am nervous about carrying on with my speech because I am afraid that the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman), will have a coronary if I do, given that she is laughing so hard at all this. Perhaps I can provide her with some sobering thoughts and statistics in a moment, but I return now to the matter of restoring the link. When do the Government propose to redeem that pledge? When will they give a straight answer to that question? I am sure that this debate will contain any number of worthy speeches by Government Back Benchers saying, The wicked Tories broke the link in 1980. This Government have had 13 years to do something about it, but they have done absolutely nothing; all they have done is pass legislation that gives them the power to restore the link, but since then they have done nothing, So I am not going to take any lectures from Labour Members about restoring the link.
	As the hon. Member for Northavon mentioned my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron), may I remind him of what our leader said at our party conference? On restoring the link, he said:
	let's be the party that finally makes it happen.
	Amen to that. May I also ask why there was no extra Christmas bonus this year? Perhaps someone could deal with that.
	The Minister for Pensions and the Ageing Society will recall, as she participated in the debate, that only last week we discussed pensioner poverty. Even on the Government's figures, some 2.5 million pensioners are living in official poverty. Some 64 per cent. of pensioner households are dependent on state benefits for at least one half of their income-that is a staggering statistic. This Government's stewardship has been marked by, among other things, failed attempts to tackle the low take-up of means-tested benefits. Some 1.8 million people do not claim the pension credit to which they are entitled. Some £5.4 billion in benefits goes unclaimed by pensioners each year; the money just stays in the Chancellor's pocket, and that is tragic. Fuel poverty is bad and getting worse. Help the Aged estimates that up to 50,000 pensioners die needlessly because of the cold every year.
	Something else that was mentioned in last week's debate and is deserving of repetition is council tax benefit. Of all the means-tested benefits it has the worst record for claims by pensioners. A well-run campaign by the Royal British Legion, supported by my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney-I believe that in the end it had cross-party support-aimed simply to change the name from council tax benefit to council tax rebate. It did so because the evidence shows that only 55 to 61 per cent. of all pensioners who qualify for the benefit get round to making a claim. That means that about £1.5 billion of the benefit is left unclaimed every year. Research carried out by ComRes on behalf of the Royal British Legion has found that more than two third of the public believe that
	some people are ashamed to claim Council Tax Benefit, even if they are entitled to it.
	An Ipsos MORI survey conducted on behalf of the Legion found that 56 per cent. of respondents believed that eligible veterans would be more likely to claim council tax benefit if it were known as a rebate rather than a benefit. Eventually, a deafening chorus of calls for that change to be made came from organisations including the House of Lords and, I think, the Select Committee. As I say, it is a very small change that could put a great deal of extra cash into the pockets of needy pensioners-cash to which they are already entitled.
	Amendments for that purpose were tabled when the Welfare Reform Bill was considered in another place, but an amendment requiring the change to be made within a set time frame was withdrawn on the basis of assurances from the Minister that the Government would definitely make the change. In language that is unusually strong for the Royal British Legion, it states:
	The Legion is extremely disappointed that, three months on, its good faith seems to have been taken for granted.
	The Government are saying-the Minister said it last week and she will no doubt say it this week-that they are consulting local councils about the proposal because there are 381 of them, or something like it, and making this one-word change requires a huge IT effort on their part. I do not think that that is good enough.
	Let me come on to another issue: the delays in implementing personal accounts, or NEST-the National Employment Savings Trust-as we have to get used to calling them. A series of substantial delays have been announced in recent weeks and months, meaning that some of the Turner report's target audience-medium and low-income workers who do not have any provision from their workplace for their retirement-might have to wait until 2017 until they are fully enrolled and receiving all the contributions under that scheme.
	Lest anyone thinks that this is simply a matter of the time that it takes to implement the scheme, the Government eventually produced the figure that they were saving £2.4 billion as a result of the delays. That is £2.4 billion stripped out of pension savings in the future for low and middle-income earners in this country. Of course, that comes on top of the £100 billion-plus raid on pension funds-one of the first acts of this Government back in 1997-and the 100,000 defined benefit schemes that have been wound up since 1997.
	To coin a phrase, we simply cannot go on like this. Despite our criticisms and misgivings, I shall not be inviting my right hon. and hon. Friends to vote against this order tonight. To do so would only deprive millions of vulnerable people-pensioners, people with disabilities, struggling families-of the extra help that they need and deserve. What sort of people would deny such help?

Angela Eagle: Liberal Democrats!

Nigel Waterson: Got it in one. Apparently, the Liberal Democrats intend to do just that. They issued a press release, which presumably means that at least for one day their policy will remain the same. At best, it is absurd posturing by a minority party. At worst, it is a cynical denial of help to the most vulnerable in our society.

David Heath: I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman. Does he recognise the fact that the last time we voted against an uprating-when we had the scandalous 75p increase-it resulted in the underpinning that the Minister has been boasting about this evening? Sometimes, when we make these points we can do a great deal of good for pensioners-his abstention will not do that.

Nigel Waterson: So, we are clear-the hon. Gentleman is making a point. The Liberal Democrats, knowing that they are never going to win these votes, are simply trying to make a point. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman has caught up with the fact that his party has, in recent weeks, abandoned its policies to introduce a universal citizens pension, free care for the elderly and free tuition fees. I wonder how much longer the queue of policies being replaced with mere aspirations will become.
	We take an altogether more responsible approach. So, although we are far from happy with some aspects of the order, as I have explained, we will not seek to defeat or delay it.

Steve Webb: It is good to have the opportunity to debate these important matters, albeit just for 90 minutes. It sometimes amazes me that we spend a couple of billion here or there, but that the form is that such things go through on the nod without anyone even considering voting against them. It is an absurdity that Parliament simply has to take or leave the whole order on occasions such as this. The part of the regulations to which we object most strongly is the freezing of the state earnings-related pension scheme and state second pensions, but current parliamentary procedures do not allow us to select the bits that we do not like and try to change them, so we are faced with the unenviable choice of either taking or opposing the whole lot.
	As my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) has pointed out, the last time we chose to register our disquiet on behalf of Britain's pensioners by voting against the entire order was when the Government had increased the pension by just 75p. It is, perhaps, no surprise that the pension went up by £5 the following year, and that, as my hon. Friend also said, legislation went through shortly thereafter to ensure that a rise of 75p would never happen again. So, although we were mocked by those who knew perfectly well what we were doing at that time, history will show that we did the right thing then, and that we are doing the right thing now by voting as I encourage my hon. Friends to vote tonight. More than 50 of them have already signed early-day motion 957, which sets out our reasons for doing so.
	Why do we propose to vote in that way? First, if we look at the additional state pension, SERPS and the state second pension, we see that this is not about a minority interest, although it might be a technical issue and something that people do not understand terribly well. Ministerial answers that I have received indicate that 6.5 million pensioners receive just SERPS pensions, 1.8 million receive both SERPS and state second pensions, and another 150,000 receive only the state second pension, so well over 8 million pensioners will not receive a 2.5 per cent. increase.
	The Minister gave an average figure of 2 per cent., which I am sure is right, but the increase will vary a lot between pensioners who have very little SERPS pension, for whom this will not make a lot of difference, and those who have never contracted out, have never had a company or private sector pension and have been in SERPS all their lives. They will tend to have been lower-paid workers who did not have the opportunity of joining a good company scheme, and a big proportion of their total pension income will come from SERPS. They will therefore get less than the 2 per cent. figure that the Minister has quoted.

Alan Reid: My hon. Friend is perfectly right. Let me give an example. This morning I received a letter from a pensioner in my constituency who will get an increase of £2.40 in her state pension, but who would have got an increase of more than £5 if the additional elements had gone up in line with inflation. That shows the significant impact that this Government proposal will have on real people.

Steve Webb: Absolutely. My hon. Friend highlights one of the strongest examples of this issue-the case of someone whose SERPS or state second pension is, by the sound of it, pretty much equivalent to their basic state pension. The Government might say, Well, it's only a pound or so a week, on average, but that becomes half a billion pounds that would have been given to pensioners if the other elements had been increased by 2.5 per cent., as the basic pension was. On hearing the 2.5 per cent. figure, many people will have thought that that is how much their pension would go up by.
	Like many hon. Members I do a lot of work on behalf of pensioners, and I often ask them to tell me what their basic pension is, because of particular schemes by which people can improve their basic pension, and almost without fail the figure that they give me is not their basic pension but their total pension. People simply do not make that mental distinction. The Minister-I hope that she will correct me if I am wrong-read something out from the pre-Budget report, which the public do not read, but she did not quote from the pre-Budget statement to the House, which is at least on the telly. If she can tell me that the Chancellor of the Exchequer made it quite clear in his statement that the additional parts of the pension would not rise in line with 2.5 per cent., I will happily give way to her-but she cannot. I think that we can only conclude that the Chancellor did not want the great British public to understand what he was doing-scooping half a billion pounds by not indexing the additional pension elements.
	The Minister gave a slightly geeky answer on this point-I do not use that word as a term of abuse-when she said that there would be implications for people who are contracted out. She will know, however, that for part of the state pension, the graduated retirement benefit-she nods knowingly-which many older pensioners, especially women, often receive, there is no contracting out issue. When she responds to the debate, as I hope she will, rather than letting it peter out, will she explain why that element was not indexed? It would not cost a significant amount and there would be no unintended consequences, as she described them. I asked her that question in response to the statement before Christmas. She did not deal with it then; I hope she will do so now.
	There are strong arguments that people are being misled and that we should have had consistent indexation between the basic pension and additional pensions- [ Interruption. ] I am delighted to say that my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable) signed our early-day motion in support of the position I am advancing.

Angela Eagle: As the shadow shadow Chancellor has just wandered into the Chamber, perhaps he should be made aware of the fact that his Front-Bench spokesperson is spending an extra £1.2 billion.

Steve Webb: I am only just warming up.
	One of the key things the voting public will want to know is where we go from here on pension uprating. We heard a staggeringly evasive contribution-even by Tory standards-from the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Waterson), who protested that the Government had been uncertain about when they would restore the earnings link, yet when he was challenged directly to say when the Conservatives would do so, answer came there none. All we know is that the Conservatives have said they will find the money for the earnings link by increasing the male state pension age to 66. They said that they would do that in 2016, which on my reckoning is beyond the end of the next Parliament, so where will they find the money? If they propose to restore the link earlier, when will they do it? Pensioners are simply being told that that will happen at some point in the next Parliament.
	The hon. Gentleman rightly derided the failure of the Labour Government to restore the earnings link for the past 13 years. His party failed to do so for 17 years, so we are up to 30 already. Does he seriously think that pensioners should be made to wait for up to another five years, on a Vote for us: we won't tell you when we'll do it, but we might get round to it some time in the next five years ticket?
	Let us consider someone who has just reached pension age, say a woman at 60, or a man at 65, or-this has just occurred to me; this is live-a man who turned 65 in 1980, when Mrs. Thatcher-now Baroness Thatcher-broke the earnings link. Such a man will be 100 by the end of the next Parliament. Only then could he be confident that a new Conservative Government would have restored the earnings link. Should somebody who retired the year Mrs. Thatcher broke the earnings link have to wait until they are 100 to see it restored? Even in the world of pensions, that might be regarded as glacial progress.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham has had his thumbscrews out. He has tested our sums and has concurred that the Liberal Democrat commitment for the pension should be to restore the earnings link not at some vague time in the next Parliament but with immediate effect-a link to the higher of prices or earnings, or the 2.5 per cent. underpinning. We have identified, as our costed manifesto always does, a list of things that we would not do, but this is the pension priority that we will introduce. That is why we were so disappointed when the regulations failed to meet that priority.
	The point about pensions has been well made. To be fair, the hon. Member for Eastbourne was right to say that the headline rate of inflation really does not do it for pensioners. The retail prices index, in particular, is massively deflated by falling interest rates. Those are great news for people who have a mortgage and are borrowing money, but for pensioners falling interest rates are not merely not good news, but actually depress their incomes through falling savings rates. It is the infamous double whammy. The headline RPI is negative, which does not benefit pensioners, but their incomes are falling because of low interest rates-a double hit. Pensioners will not perceive themselves as having experienced no inflation.
	We know that inflation is 3.5 per cent. or more, so to give pensioners an average of 2 per cent. in April, as the uprating does, will be a real cut. It is saying to pensioners, You're first against the wall. You're first to take the pain of the recession. That is what the order does, which is why we shall oppose it tonight.
	There are two issues relating to the order to which I want to draw the House's attention. The first is pensions. The second is the temporary child benefit and disability benefit increase. The Minister said that the Government were bringing forward a rise that would have happened next year. She asked in what sense there was a real cut, and I will tell her. This year those benefits will increase by 1.5 per cent., when inflation is notionally nil or negative. Next year they will go up by whatever inflation is, less 1.5 per cent. Any graph of the real value of benefits would show an increase the year before the election and a fall the year after the election. That fits my definition of cynicism. The Government say, Well, we'll bring some money forward just before you are about to vote for us, and then we'll claw it back the year after the election.
	Indeed, it gets worse: the temporary bringing forward of the money is not consolidated into the rate of benefit that must be increased. In other words, the 1.5 per cent. does not go into the base level that is then indexed; it is taken away again and the indexation applies to the pre-increase rate. That is a curious notion of indexation. So this is purely about timing, and the idea that the electoral cycle might have some bearing on it is very hard to resist.
	I want to raise a final issue, which is always the elephant in the room during such debates. I want to tell my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham that I have found some money. In fact, I can tell him that I have found £50 billion-I do not want much of it-sitting in the national insurance fund. As hon. Members will know, along with the order, the Government Actuary's Department produces a report on the national insurance fund, and it tells us that the estimates for 2009-10 are payments of £75.7 billion and receipts of £78.1 billion. The recession may have done a bit to that, but the fund is more than £2 billion in surplus in 2009-10. Of course, that adds to the accumulated surplus in the fund, so that the balance at 31 March 2011, according to the Government Actuary, will be £50 billion-not a bad day's work, really.
	The law only requires the balance in the fund to be one sixth of annual expenditure on benefits. The actual balance in the fund is about two thirds of annual estimated benefit payments. So pensioners' groups always ask us where the money has gone. When we find out where it has gone, it is a bit of surprise. A little bit of the money goes to the national health service, but the law says that most of it must go towards national insurance benefits, pensions and so on. But at the rates in the order, it cannot all be spent on national insurance benefits and pensions. They are not big enough to spend all the cash on, so the balance keeps rising year after year.
	Where does the money go? My understanding is that the fund is a bit like a soft bank that lends money to the rest of public sector, so that the Government need not borrow it from elsewhere. Of course, when the Chancellor said in a recent Budget that he would increase national insurance contributions to help fill the hole in the Budget, he was doing so to spend that money not on national insurance benefits and pensions, but on others things, presumably. How can the fund be used as a label and a soft way to raise tax, when the money is not spent on national insurance benefits and pensions?
	I wonder whether the Minister can tell us where the £50 billion is. Is it held by the national insurance fund? This is a serious question. Is that £50 billion, or is everything beyond the 16 per cent. that must be kept lent out? If so, to whom? Who is borrowing the national insurance fund? Where is it? Where is our cash? Who is borrowing it? What interest rate are they paying? Or is the national insurance fund being used as a sort of low-interest loan-a kind of Carol Vorderman approach to Government finances? I apologise to the Conservatives for using that example. Is this a way of getting in soft money at low interest rates to lend to the rest of the Government? Is that really what Beveridge had in mind? Did he think that the national insurance fund would essentially become a kind of easy credit option for the Government? We have come an awful long way since the start of the contributory principle.
	It is deemed bad form to ask such questions. Clever people do not ask where the national insurance fund money is, because we all know that the fund is work of fiction, but then why does the Government Actuary produce glossy reports telling us how much is in it? How much does it cost to produce the reports telling us that there is £50 billion in the fund, although when I ask Ministers about it they say, But there isn't. Don't be silly, Steve. We know that the £50 billion isn't really there. There isn't really any money there at all, and you certainly couldn't spend it. Well, where is it? Why do we go through this charade every year? Either this is a charade or it is real money. If it is real money, where is it, and what is being done with it?
	We would like to amend the regulations and take out the elements that freeze additional pensions, graduated pensions and state second pensions, but parliamentary procedure does not allow that. It would be nice to think that our votes in the House on Thursday on so-called modernisation would allow us, among other things, more scope to amend statutory instruments rather than simply voting for or against them, but we are not allowed that subtlety. We must vote for or against.
	We have set out our reasoning on the Order Paper, in early-day motion 957. We will vote against the order tonight. If the Government were to say that that might deprive people of their benefit increases, as has been gently indicated, I have had a word with my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath), the shadow Leader of the House for the Liberal Democrats, and he has nobly said that he will be prepared to make time in the business of the House for a debate on a revised set of regulations as early as tomorrow. We would be happy to give extra time to debate a revised version of the uprating regulations tomorrow, with the offending elements amended so that everyone gets their benefit increase and the £500 million that has been taken away from pensioners can be restored. There need be no loss or administrative delay to anyone, simply a more rational set of regulations.

David Heath: We cannot conclude without referring to the feckless position of the so-called official Opposition, who apparently cannot oppose such motions because it is beyond their wit to realise that it is proper to oppose a motion that does the wrong thing in the hope that a motion will be tabled that will do the right thing. Is that not a rather disingenuous argument, when they find no difficulty in voting against the Budget? If they were to succeed, there would be no Budget, no uprating and no expenditure.

Steve Webb: My hon. Friend puts it admirably. I apologise for going too soft on the official Opposition, but he reminds me to have a go. I have long since given up expecting consistency from the Conservatives on such matters. In a few months they hope to be pulling the levers of power, so they do not want to rock the boat too much. We heard from the Conservatives that they would abstain, which is their default position on so many key issues- [Interruption]-indeed, for the second time tonight on key issues. When pensioners in our constituencies ask us, Where were you on 1 March?, I will say, with my hon. Friends, We were voting against the freezing of your pension. I suspect that the Conservatives will have to say, We were at home in bed.

John Mason: I thank the hon. Member for Northavon (Steve Webb) for leaving me time to make a few comments. I think highly of him and agree with a number of his points, including the suggestion that we should be able to amend such an order. The public would find it bizarre that we have to take it or leave it. I also agree that those at the bottom seem to be suffering the greatest pain from the recession. That is the basis for my remarks. I have some reservations, however, about the Liberal Democrat tactic of voting against the increase in order to get a bigger one.
	The Minister made some interesting comments. For example, she claimed that the Government are protecting the most vulnerable. That sounds a reasonable statement, but when we look at what is happening in the wider economy and the amount of money that has gone into the banks and elsewhere, it sounds a little hollow. It is easy to speak about percentages. I noticed that the official Opposition and the Government are keen to talk about the percentages, be it 2, 2.5 or 1.5 per cent., but let us remember that in real terms in 1979 those at the top were earning about three times as much as those at the bottom. That has widened to four times as much.
	In wealth terms, according to the recent report on inequality, those in the 10th percentile now have 96 times the wealth of those in the 90th percentile. That is the kind of sick society that we are living in. Some in this society, as we have been reading, continue to get huge bonuses. We are arguing about a pension going up £2.40 a week. That will not buy a pint of beer in London and will barely pay for a decent coffee. We need to look at the actual figures, not just the percentages. Jobseeker's allowance is going up from £64.30 to £65.45, which is an increase of £1.15. I wonder how many of us could live on that, given that our salaries are about 19 times that amount. The Minister said that we need to be balanced about the costs. She said that the cost is about £2 billion, yet Trident submarines cost about £100 billion, so where is the balance in that? She also said that there needs to be an incentive to work, but perhaps that just shows that the minimum wage is far too low and needs to be part of the equation, instead of being lost somewhere else.
	The hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Waterson) talked about bribes and, presumably, referred to those same increases of £2.40 a week and £1.15 a week, but I just wonder what he would do for a bribe of £2.40 or £1.15-not very much, I suspect. We are disappointed that the deferred pensions are not being increased. The increases before us are not satisfactory, but anything is better than nothing.

Michael Weir: My hon. Friend mentions the deferred pensions, but there is an issue of fairness, because a constituent came to see me about that very issue and made the point very clearly that, when she agreed to defer her pension, she was promised-in documentation that she was given and which she showed me-that it would be increased annually, along with the basic pension. The Government have broken that promise. Does my hon. Friend not agree that that is unacceptable?

John Mason: Yes, that is obviously the latest in a long line of promises that we have come to expect the Government to break.

Angela Eagle: Before the hon. Gentleman gets himself too worked up, will he at least admit that the legal underpinning is that the benefits should be uprated by the retail prices index? For the first time in 50 years we had a negative RPI, so the default issuance would have been zero. Given that we have been able to do better by spending £2 billion extra in tough economic times, will he at least acknowledge that we have done what we can to protect the vulnerable in very difficult circumstances?

John Mason: I should have answered the first intervention before I took the second one, but the point remains that the deferral was promised but not provided by a Government who have a large majority and can push through such measures if they really want to. I accept the Minister's point that the Government have done more than they are legally required to do, but the whole point about my brief comments is that we should not get lost in the small percentages; we need to look at the bigger picture and the pitiful amount on which many pensioners in this country have to live when others are fabulously wealthy.

Steve Webb: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

John Mason: I was trying to finish, but I shall.

Steve Webb: I am very grateful. The hon. Gentleman is such good value that I want him to keep going. The hon. Member for Angus (Mr. Weir) put his finger on a very important point, because people have deferred the basic state pension. If I chose to defer my basic state pension, I would expect indexed increments on it, but, if the basic state pension is indexed and the deferral is not, surely that is inconsistent, if not challengeable.

John Mason: Yes, I completely agree that it is inconsistent, and, as my hon. Friend says to me from a sedentary position, the Government, as others have said, are saving money with this measure. However, I think that I have made my point, and I am happy to leave it at that.

Justine Greening: I had not planned to contribute to the debate, but, having listened to contributions from both sides of the House, I want to make a few remarks in a brief contribution of my own.
	Whatever the misgivings of some hon. Members, voting against the motion at some point would be excessively short-termist in outlook. There is a 1.5 per cent. rise this year, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Waterson) said, there is also a cynical attempt to withdraw it after the general election.

Nigel Waterson: Speaking of cynicism, I wonder whether my hon. Friend can help me on this point: does she understand the tactics of the Liberal Democrats in apparently intending to go into the Lobby to vote against the uprating of all these benefits while hoping against hope that they will lose?

Justine Greening: My hon. Friend makes a good point. It would be deeply irresponsible for the Lib Dems to play politics with payments that matter so much to millions of people across Britain, and to divide the House so as to vote against rises that will be very welcome, purely in order to campaign in their constituencies.

Daniel Rogerson: I am pleased that the hon. Lady has had the opportunity to come into the Chamber to contribute to the debate at this stage. She may not have been here when my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) drew a parallel with the Budget. Her party often votes against the Budget, which might well contain important measures of which it is in favour, to make a more substantial point. Does she see a parallel there?

Justine Greening: There is a time to debate the reduction in pensions that might happen in the next financial year, and it is then. It is simply wrong to stand against rises that will be welcomed by millions of pensioners across Britain this year when we do not know what the outcome of the election will be and what will happen next year. I urge the Liberal Democrats to play a responsible role in this House instead of the irresponsible role that I suspect they desire to play.

Angela Eagle: With the leave of the House, Mr. Speaker, I am happy to reply to the debate.
	We have had an interesting debate. The issue that we all have to consider is how, in difficult and tough economic times, with unusual measures of price rises-in fact, real price cuts, with the retail prices index being negative-we deal with protecting the most vulnerable in society. Through this uprating statement, we have tried to put first the protection of the most vulnerable in society. That is why we set aside an extra £5 billion to expand and increase the active labour market policies that will help people back into jobs as swiftly as possible. It is also why we have tried particularly to protect the benefits that are traditionally uprated by the retail prices index by at least 1.5 per cent., or, in the case of the basic state pension, by 2.5 per cent.
	However, as the hon. Member for Northavon (Steve Webb) was quick to point out, these increases do not apply to additional pensions. In fact, the underpinning to which he referred, which has been put into place by this Government since 2001, has only ever applied to the basic state pension. Amid all the bluster that we have heard tonight, nobody has claimed that the underpinning of 2.5 per cent. to the increases in basic state pension applied elsewhere. Nobody has tried to prove that point or to claim that we have somehow pulled the wool over people's eyes. In fact, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has done exactly as was promised in 2001 by having an underpinning of 2.5 per cent. for the basic state pension.

Michael Weir: I understand the Minister's point, but my constituent's point was that when she deferred her pension, she was given documentation stating clearly that the additional pension grant as a result of the deferral would go up with the basic state pension in every year. That is not happening this year. By deferring the pension, she did not get payments for a couple of years, which obviously saved the Government some money along the way. Does the Minister agree that it is unfair not to adhere to that promise?

Angela Eagle: I am happy to have a look at the documentation that the hon. Gentleman has, but it is important to remember that a negative figure on the retail prices index does not happen very often. It has happened only once in the past 50 years, so these are very unusual circumstances.
	Members of both the main Opposition parties have gone around the country whipping up worries about the size of the deficit and saying that we have to cut it immediately-we should have started last year, according to the Conservative party, and the Liberal Democrats have been making similar noises. For them to come to the House and say that we should be spending another £1.2 billion on this uprating alone-in other words, giving the impression that they would like increased expenditure on this but less expenditure in total-is almost as incoherent as the view that a 1.5 per cent. increase somehow amounts to a cut.
	We will increase working-age benefits by 1.8 per cent., in line with the growth in the Rossi index, and during these difficult global economic conditions, when we have seen negative RPI for the first time in 50 years and people might have expected a freeze, the Government have been able to deliver an above-earnings increase in the basic state pension of 2.5 per cent., an above-earnings increase of 2 per cent. in the standard minimum guarantee for pension credit for the poorest, and a 1.5 per cent. increase in key disability and carers' benefits.
	I will not take lessons in pensioner poverty or anything else from members of the Conservative party, considering that when we came into government in 1997 the poorest pensioners lived on £69 a week, which is £98 in today's prices, and that no one now needs to live on less than £132.50 a week. There has been a real-terms increase of almost one third for the poorest pensioners. We have spent £100 billion more on pensioners since 1997 than would have been the case had we continued with the system that we inherited. We have provided for a real-terms increase above RPI in the basic state pension, and this is the fourth time in 13 years under the Labour Government that we have had a real-terms increase above prices. The Conservatives increased it only twice, once in their first year in government in 1979 and once to compensate for introducing VAT on fuel. It is clear that pensioners have had a much better deal from this Government. We are spending £13 billion a year more on pensioners than would have been the case had we kept the old system in place.
	The Government believe in giving help to the most vulnerable in society at the time when they need it most, and we have focused that help on the basic state pension as the correct mechanism by which to do so. Carers, disabled people and those receiving statutory payments for parents will also receive an above-index increase in their benefits, ensuring that they do not fall behind. The order provides a package of uprating proposals that will put £2 billion in the pockets of the poorest and most vulnerable in our society, and I commend it to the House.
	 Question put.
	 The Speaker's opinion as to the decision of the Question being challenged, the Division was deferred until Wednesday 3 March (Standing Order No. 41A).

Mr. Speaker: We come now to motion 7- [Interruption.] Order. I recognise that the deferral of the Division will come as a surprise to many right hon. and hon. Members, but equally they will know that I operate on the basis of the advice that is given to me by procedural-

Andrew Robathan: Expert advice.

Mr. Speaker: They are procedural experts. I am grateful to the hon. and gallant Member for Blaby (Mr. Robathan) for his sedentary endorsement of the value of the Clerks' advice. I am operating on the basis of that advice, and it would not be proper to have a Division now. That is why it is deferred. I hope that explanation is helpful.

Local Authorities (Overview and Scrutiny) Bill (Money)

Queen's recommendation signified.
	 Motion made , and Question proposed,
	That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Local Authorities (Overview and Scrutiny) Bill, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of money provided by Parliament of-
	(1) any expenditure incurred by the Secretary of State in consequence of the Act, and
	(2) any increase attributable to the Act in the sums payable under any other Act out of money so provided. -(Angela Eagle.)

Justine Greening: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I can see that the hour is late and that you are looking a little tired, so I will try and ensure that I do not detain the House for long.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I am sure the hon. Lady is not suggesting that I am looking tired. I am full of vim, as is she.

Justine Greening: I was trying to ensure that you are engaged, Mr. Speaker, and I am delighted to say that I have achieved my objective.
	I will not detain the House for long. Suffice it to say that this is a money resolution. On Second Reading, the official Opposition said that we would not stand in the way of the Bill. We do not think that it is drafted as effectively as it could be to achieve what we support, which is helping local authorities to enhance their abilities to scrutinise bodies that provide public services on the ground. Local area agreements are delivered in part by organisations that are not local authorities, and we want them to be subject to full scrutiny, too. On Second Reading, we debated how that might happen.
	Although we have some concerns about the drafting of the Bill, we support the resolution, so that we can have the debate in Committee. As I am sure you would expect, Mr. Speaker, we aim to play our role in the debate in Committee by making a number of amendments further to improve the Bill, which is important. As I briefly touched on, we need properly to understand the scope of the Bill-it could be quite broad-and how it works. If we can do that effectively, we have a good chance of ensuring that it does not become onerous financially for local authorities.
	On Second Reading, the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Dudley, North (Mr. Austin), who is not in the Chamber, said that local authorities would continue to work within their existing budgets and that the only costs he expected to emerge from the Bill were extra compliance costs for the public bodies that will be subject to increased scrutiny. We should also not forget the extra burdens that could be put on private bodies.
	We support the money resolution. We understand that the extra costs to local authorities could nevertheless be in the region of £4.5 million, but that the Government have committed to funding any extra costs under the new burdens principle. Will the Minister confirm that the £4.5 million that is set out in the impact assessment is still the Government's projected assessment of the cost of the Bill? Perhaps we will also debate that in Committee.
	One final point is that if we are going to give councils and elected councillors more ability to hold providers of public services to account, we need to debate ensuring that councils can be set up with the structure that they think helps them not only deliver public services, but carry out that scrutiny best. They need to be given more freedom. In fact, the Local Government Act 2000 requires councils to abandon the traditional committee system and adopt either directly elected mayors or a cabinet system. We think that that is overly prescriptive, and that local government should be able to choose how to run itself more effectively.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Lady is displaying an imaginative interpretation of the terms of the motion-some might even go so far as to use the word liberal, although I do not in any way wish to cast an aspersion on her- [ Interruption. ] Order. The sedentary contribution from the hon. Member for Croydon, Central (Mr. Pelling) probably will not assist matters even if it might be amusing. I know the hon. Lady will now wish to focus her remarks on the terms of the motion. Just to emphasise the point, the motion does not permit her to dilate on the subject of the Bill as a whole, but on the matters of overview and scrutiny, with particular reference-and reference only-to money.

Justine Greening: I was trying to be helpful to the Minister, because I was just about to wrap up by saying that we intended to table an amendment in Committee. I wanted to flag that up to the Minister-

Andrew Robathan: It would save money.

Justine Greening: As my hon. Friend says, it could help councils to save money if they could operate more effectively.
	We support the aims of the Bill and we look forward to debating it in Committee. This money resolution is important as it means that that can now happen. I look forward to that debate.

Barbara Follett: This Bill makes provision to require local authorities with lead responsibility for local area agreements to provide designated scrutiny officers with sufficient resources to discharge their functions. That is what the hon. Member for Putney (Justine Greening) was referring to in her contribution. This requirement may result in additional costs for authorities, which we estimate will be no more than £4.5 million a year.
	In line with the new burdens doctrine, any net additional cost to local authorities as a result of this requirement will be fully and properly funded by the Government. The provision requiring these local authorities to resource sufficiently their scrutiny officers is necessary if the aims of the Bill are to be achieved. I commend the resolution to the House.
	 Question put and agreed to.

Business without Debate

DELEGATED LEGISLATION

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 118(6)),

Income Tax

That the draft Special Annual Allowance Charge (Variation of Rate) Order 2010, which was laid before this House on 5 January, be approved. -(Mr. Mudie.)
	 Question agreed to.
	 Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 118(6)),

Immigration

That the draft Immigration and Nationality (Fees) Regulations 2010, which were laid before this House on 20 January, be approved. -(Mr. Mudie.)
	 Question agreed to.
	 Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 118(6)),
	That the draft Immigration (Leave to Enter and Remain) (Amendment) Order 2010, which was laid before this House on 20 January, be approved. -(Mr. Mudie.)
	 Question agreed to.
	 Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 118(6)),

Social Security

That the draft Social Security (Loss of Benefit) Amendment Regulations 2010, which were laid before this House on 20 January, be approved. -(Mr. Mudie.)
	 Question agreed to.

ESTIMATES

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No.145),
	That this House agrees with the Report [24 February] of the Liaison Committee. -(Mr. Mudie.)
	 Question agreed to.

PETITIONS

Bellamy's Bar Closure

Christopher Chope: This petition, the first to be presented under the new procedure, was organised by Cassian Horowitz and is supported by some 470 staff working in the House of Commons. The large number of signatures was collected over just two working days, and that demonstrates the depth of concern about the proposals. It is a great honour to present the petition on behalf of these members of staff and perhaps others, who may have felt intimidated into not signing the petition when given the opportunity to do so. That was the subject of a point of order that I raised earlier today.
	The petition states:
	The Petition of staff working in Parliament,
	Declares that the Petitioners are concerned at the announcement by the House of Commons Commission that it intends to close Bellamy's Bar, the Astor Suite and Bellamy's club room on the first floor of 1 Parliament Street in order to provide a day nursery; that the Petitioners believe that the estimated cost of conversion of £400,000 is unacceptable in the present economic climate, particularly having regard to the expenditure of £480,000 on refurbishing the facilities less than two years ago;
	Further declares that the Petitioners deplore the fact that there has been no consultation with the users of the facilities or with those who work there, and find it unacceptable that there are no plans to replace the facilities elsewhere on the Parliamentary estate; and that the Petitioners believe that ground floor premises at Derby Gate which will become available during the next Parliament will be better suited for conversion into a day nursery.
	The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons calls upon the House of Commons Commission to reconsider its decision, and to bring forward fresh proposals early in the next Parliament which take account of the demand for day nursery facilities among incoming Members of Parliament, their families, and staff, with a view to meeting that demand at an affordable price within the space to be vacated on the ground floor at Derby Gate.
	And the Petitioners remain, etc.
	[P000743]

Extra Gritting (NHS Savings)

Andrew Pelling: It is also my pleasure, on this first evening of the new, improved procedures for the presentation of petitions, to present a petition initiated initially by me, but supported very much by the Spring Park residents association, under the strong leadership of its secretary, Marzia Nicodemi-Ehikioya. The petition concerns the important matter of how the national health service and local councils could work together to address the issue of expenditure arising from injuries from falling on ice on uncleared pavements, which leads to a great deal more expense for the NHS than is necessary and to a great deal of upset, concern and injury-and, for senior citizens who fall on the ice, sometimes life-changing injuries.
	The petition reads as follows:
	The Petition of People of Croydon,
	Declares that there are huge increases in visits to A and E at Mayday after falls on treacherous ice on Croydon's roads and pavements and that it would be worthwhile investing in extra gritting such that less public money is spent caring for the injured or lost from reduced income tax and national insurance payments from those kept off work through injury.
	The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to take steps to encourage the NHS and local Councils to work together to identify funds for extra gritting of pavements and roads so as to reduce costly and painful accidents.
	And the Petitioners remain, etc.
	[P000744]

WARM FRONT (MR. D. R. SMITH)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn. -(Mr. Mudie.)

Richard Benyon: I welcome the Minister to the Treasury Bench to discuss an important matter concerning the Warm Front scheme. The idea behind Warm Front deserves nothing but praise. The scheme was introduced for the best of reasons, but too often it is failing in terms of how it is delivered. Like many hon. Members, I have received a number of complaints about how Warm Front, which involves loft insulation, cavity wall insulation, replacement boilers and heating systems, is implemented. There is a recurring theme of poor communication, broken appointments, missing paperwork, overpricing, offers being withdrawn at the last minute because funds are no longer available, and bad workmanship, the latter having resulted in two cases being brought to my attention by constituents forced to evacuate their homes, as they were uninhabitable. The Public Accounts Committee recognised the problem last July, when it identified the many failings in the scheme, and other organisations, such as Help the Aged, have been frank in the words that they have used.
	The case that I would like to discuss today-the case of my constituent Mr. Dennis Smith-is one of particular concern. Mr. Smith lives in a park home in Elm Grove in the town of Thatcham. He is an elderly and very vulnerable gentleman, but someone who strives to maintain his independence. He suffers from Parkinson's disease and associated problems. In short, he is an example of the very sort of person whom the scheme set out to help.
	Mr. Smith attended one of my surgeries in November 2008 and told me that he had applied for, and been allocated, a Warm Front grant to cover the installation of a new boiler in his property. Unfortunately, he had inadvertently failed to follow the strict-and, I have to say, complicated-procedures to the satisfaction of Eaga, the company tasked by the Government to administer the scheme. This action resulted in the company's refusal to honour Mr. Smith's grant, after he had borrowed the £2,800 necessary to pay the installation engineers. Since then I have written some 20 letters and e-mails to Warm Front, to Eaga, to the Department of Energy and Climate Change and to the Minister, in an effort to get someone to examine his case with compassion, to apply some discretion and to give Mr. Smith the support that the scheme should offer.
	Quality Heating Services-a Warm Front-appointed installer-undertook a technical survey of Mr. Smith's home, which was completed on 16 November 2007. The company informed Mr. Smith that the existing one-pipe heating system was unsuitable and needed to be converted to a two-pipe system, which would be external to the building. This was in spite of the fact that all park homes on the site, including the new ones, have one-pipe systems, and that the two-pipe systems are appropriate to bricks-and-mortar buildings, and not to park homes. Furthermore, the site manager was not happy with the proposal for the additional exterior pipework, and queried the need for it.
	However, the installation was to go ahead, but when the three engineers arrived to carry out the work and saw the assessor's plan, they did not agree that it was suitable, and after a disagreement with the assessor on the telephone, they left. A few days later the assessor returned, collected the materials and the boiler, and told Mr. Smith to contact Eaga and ask for a different assessor to come out and look at the proposal.
	Mr. Smith raised his concerns with Warm Front, and it was agreed that an alternative installer would be appointed to establish whether a different system type or configuration could be identified. The one-pipe or two-pipe system was not an issue for Eaga, but there was a problem concerning the layout and specification of the improvements. Mr. Smith is adamant that at no stage in the process did he dismiss the company, and had merely stated that he needed a minor change to the proposed specification.
	On 27 February 2008 a telephone conversation took place between Mr. Smith and Alan Symes of Eaga, during which Mr. Smith expressed his concern that the work proposed was not what he had originally been led to believe. Following this conversation, Alan Symes contacted Eaga heating services and cancelled the work. This was confirmed in an e-mail, which I have seen. Eaga asserts that Mr. Smith cancelled the work during this conversation, but although it states that its telephone calls are recorded, the company has been unable to provide any evidence to back up this assertion. In the absence of proof to the contrary, I believe that we have to accept Mr. Smith's word that he did not cancel the work.
	As a result of extreme confusion and frustration with the Warm Front system, and of the inadequate advice given, Mr. Smith instructed another firm to carry out the work in April 2008, in the full and certain knowledge that he had been awarded the grant. Apparently, that firm-Ultimate-was carrying out work on a neighbouring park home, and Mr. Smith was informed that that too was being done under the Warm Front scheme.
	Unfortunately, it later transpired that the firm had not been appointed by Eaga, and Mr. Smith was subsequently informed that because he had had the work carried out privately, his outlay of £2,800 would not be reimbursed. Mr. Smith had borrowed that sum of money specifically to pay Ultimate's bill, under the mistaken impression that it was his responsibility initially to pay the installers, and he would be reimbursed by Warm Front. The work was carried out almost two years ago, and Mr. Smith is now in a position of extreme financial hardship as a consequence of Eaga's inability or unwillingness to resolve this matter.
	In a letter to Mr. Smith dated 2 June 2009, Janelle Xavier of the customer contact unit at the Minister's Department stated:
	Although the installer you hired-
	Ultimate-
	may also carry out work for Warm Front,
	which they do,
	they had not been appointed to your particular case and so you did actually hire that company privately.
	Ms Xavier goes on to say that she understands why Mr. Smith took the decision to appoint Ultimate, but that Eaga plc, the scheme manager,
	are unable to provide retrospective payments other than in cases where they can identify extenuating circumstances.
	I believe that Mr. Smith's case demonstrates such extenuating circumstances.
	I first wrote to Eaga on Mr. Smith's behalf on 15 December 2008 and received an unsympathetic response from a Mr. Redmayne, dated 27 January 2009. Although Mr. Smith admits that he inadvertently did not do things in the way prescribed by Eaga, this does not detract from the fact that he had already been awarded the grant. I cannot believe that no one has the ability, common sense or just plain compassion to use a little discretion in this particular circumstance. Mr. Smith is typical of the kind of person this scheme was set up to help, but unfortunately for him-he has this in common with a number of my other constituents-it is causing stress and aggravation, and is not achieving what it was intended to do.
	Eaga relies on two points in its refusal to honour Mr. Smith's grant. First, it asserts that Mr. Smith himself cancelled the work, in February 2008. Mr. Smith vehemently denies this, and Eaga is unable to produce any transcript of the alleged telephone conversation in this regard-despite confirming that its telephone calls are recorded. Any sense of justice suggests that we have to rule out that assertion.
	Secondly, Eaga asserts that Mr. Smith was applying for a grant retrospectively. This is just plain wrong, as it has never been disputed that Mr. Smith's application was approved before any engineers were instructed to visit the property. In fact, Eaga instructed the first contractors, but the work could not go ahead as the system planned was suitable only for a brick dwelling. As I said earlier, Mr. Smith's residence is a park home, which required an alternative method of installation.
	Mr. Smith has co-operated with Eaga at every turn in supplying evidence and answering questions. He has written to a total of 10 different people, reiterating the same information time and time again. He has supplied full details of the installation finally carried out by an appropriately qualified engineer, together with a copy of the building regulations compliance certificate and confirmation that the local authority building control department has evidence of this work. The work is also covered by the CORGI workmanship warranty scheme for a period of six years from the date of installation. Eaga has not indicated that there is any problem with the work done. In fact, the installers meet the criteria laid down in Warm Front's own brochure.
	It is cruel, and just wrong, to use the understandable confusion of an elderly gentleman to avoid paying a grant that was previously agreed. Furthermore, it has been reiterated in several letters that the money is still available to Mr. Smith at such time as he needs further assistance from Warm Front. Given that Warm Front's stance is that he is applying for a grant retrospectively, which they will not pay, it would seem that it is suggesting that he has his new heating system removed and reinstalled by a designated engineer, at which time they will pay up the grant that was agreed some two or three years ago. That is madness; it amounts to nothing more than a taunt.
	You can detect in my delivery, Mr. Speaker, that I am intensely frustrated in dealing with this particular issue. Other people in my office have been dealing with it-seemingly day in, day out. At the end of it, we just have to consider that there is a vulnerable sick person who needs a bit of common sense to be exercised to sort the problem out. That is why I am asking the Minister to intervene.
	This is a case where process has become the master, while compassion, flexibility and understanding have been forgotten. The Government should be proud of the Warm Front scheme, but Eaga and others involved in its implementation are letting them down. More importantly, Eaga is letting down precisely the kind of vulnerable people whom the Government seek to help. The Minister can intervene; he has the authority; it is taxpayers' money. I look to him now to rectify this wrong.

David Kidney: I congratulate the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Benyon) on securing the debate, standing up so strongly for his constituent, Mr. Smith, and examining the record of the Warm Front scheme. I share his view that this hugely important scheme should bring maximum benefit to vulnerable households that would otherwise struggle to heat their homes.
	Warm Front is the Government's flagship scheme when it comes to tackling fuel poverty. It has assisted more than 2 million vulnerable households across England since its inception in June 2000, including half a million households in the last two years alone. On average, each household receiving Warm Front assistance has the potential to save more than £300 a year on energy bills. That is a huge achievement, and we must not lose sight of it.
	Every Warm Front applicant is offered a free and confidential benefit entitlement check. During 2008-09 just over 78,000 benefit entitlement checks were completed, 45 per cent. of which resulted in householders' entitlement to a new or additional benefit. That meant an average weekly increase of £31 in household income. Since the scheme began in 2000, 843 households in the Newbury constituency have benefited from a main heating or insulation measure.
	Warm Front helps to mitigate the risk that households will be unable to keep warm at an affordable cost. A vital part of my Department's work is helping those vulnerable households to improve their quality of life, and helping to promote their health and well-being. The challenge involved in delivering such huge numbers of measures for vulnerable households should not be underestimated. The popularity of the scheme, and the fact that we are engaging with some of the most vulnerable members of society, mean that processes and procedures need to be followed to ensure a high standard of work and to provide the best possible outcomes for the customer and the scheme. I assure the hon. Gentleman that the appropriate mechanisms are in place to ensure that Warm Front delivers a high-quality service to those who come to us for assistance.
	As I am sure many people know, the scheme is currently experiencing very high levels of demand, and managing that demand within the resources available has necessitated an extension of the time in which measures can be taken. Insulation work may take up to three months to complete, and Warm Front customers who are eligible for a new or replacement heating system may have to wait up to six months for it to be installed. In recognition of the pressure on the scheme, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor announced in his pre-Budget report an additional £150 million for Warm Front in the current spending round. I realise that the potential waiting times may seem significant, but Warm Front is not intended to be, and cannot act as, an emergency service.
	I cannot deny that the customer's experience is not always as good as we would like it to be. We, and Eaga in its role as scheme manager, continue to focus on that as a priority for action. We have made significant progress over the past few years. In 2008-09, 0.63 per cent. of complaints about Warm Front's work for assisted households were upheld. According to a recent report on the scheme by our independent auditors, WYG, customer satisfaction remains high, and 90 per cent. of all those surveyed were satisfied with the work that had been done.

Richard Benyon: I apologise for interrupting the Minister, who is giving a great deal of important information about the scheme, but I do not want to let him sit down without referring to the specific case of Mr. Smith. I apologise again if he is about to deal with it, but can he assure me that he will address himself to the points that I have raised?

David Kidney: I believe that there is plenty of time left for me to deal with Mr. Smith's case, and I intend to do so. However, I think it important to record the successes of Warm Front and the scale of the enterprise, and to explain the reasons for the procedures and processes that the hon. Gentleman has railed against.
	I welcome the results of the WYG report and the National Audit Office report last year, to which the hon. Gentleman alluded when he mentioned the Public Accounts Committee, and which found the scheme to be largely effective and to deliver value for money. One of the NAO recommendations was to seek alternative technologies under the scheme. I welcomed that recommendation at the time, and have acted on it since. For example, we recently undertook trials on solar thermal systems, and are currently looking at air-source heat pumps and solid wall insulation.
	In 2009, we trialled solar thermal systems on 125 homes. Unfortunately, we found that the systems do not generally reduce heating costs and therefore have little impact on helping to tackle fuel poverty. In rural properties off the gas grid, we are now undertaking a small-scale trial of air-source heat pumps. We are also trialling solid wall insulation on a 100 park homes in eight different locations. An evaluation of each of these technologies is planned for this summer. I hope both of the technologies will be a success in helping Warm Front customers.
	The hon. Gentleman has previously raised the possibility of making retrospective payments to customers who have been awarded a Warm Front grant and who then arranged to have the work done privately. It is very important to me that customers receive a high standard of work at a competitive price. For that reason, we have in place an established procedure for the appointment of installers to work on the scheme and for the allocation of work.
	The NAO report found the measures provided by the scheme to be competitively priced. However, we are making more changes to the way in which work is allocated to the scheme in order to be even more competitive. Under the new arrangements, which are now being rolled out across England, up to 35 per cent. of work will be allocated to appointed installers at a new, competitively derived, set price. For the remaining 65 per cent. of work, Warm Front-registered installers operating in each region will be able to bid via an electronic auction to establish the lowest price. That will help to ensure the continued focus on maintaining a competitive pricing structure. It will also provide customers with a choice when a contribution is required. Individual households will be free to choose between the three lowest bidders and will have access to the installer's performance rating, which will be measured through Eaga audits.
	We have also recently introduced computer-aided design surveys that are done at the customer's home and immediately show where any heating and insulation measures will be placed. Engineers have been trained to use this new technology, which enables a quicker, more thorough survey process and reduces any misunderstandings the customer may have about recommended measures.
	In using these processes, we honour our commitment to make sure customers receive high-quality installations that are competitively priced. We also honour our commitment to allocate work through the scheme to registered installers, while providing an element of choice for those who are being asked to make a contribution.
	I understand the hon. Gentleman's concern with regard to the scheme being less flexible than he might wish for some customers. However, we must have safeguards in place to ensure the best outcomes for all. That is why we cannot fund work that has not been undertaken as part of the scheme.
	I heard the hon. Gentleman raise concerns about workmanship in respect of the installation of Warm Front measures, and there has recently been some press coverage on the matter. The reality is that installing a heating system is often a complex and disruptive process. Just because Warm Front is a Government-funded scheme does not mean it is immune from these difficulties, and there will inevitably be isolated cases where the installation goes wrong. We cannot, however, let the existence of these isolated cases paint a misleading picture of the standard throughout the scheme. Warm Front performs an independent inspection of every central heating measure installed to ensure the work has been completed to a high standard. It also provides two years of emergency breakdown service and two annual service visits for gas installations. The Warm Front scheme manager operates an installer rating system which ranks the performance of contractors against criteria such as the inspection pass rate, complaint levels and waiting times. This system is then used to determine the levels of work allocated to each installer, with jobs diverted to the high performers. This system places continual pressure on installers to drive performance higher and ensure clients receive an excellent standard of service. I hope this provides some perspective in respect of the overall high standard of service that Warm Front delivers and is committed to maintain.
	I come now to the case of the hon. Gentleman's constituent, Mr. Smith. I am satisfied from my study of it that the appropriate advice and procedures have been followed when dealing with that application. The hon. Gentleman mentioned that I have written to him in the past, and I wish to confirm to him that I studied the file and read the papers from Eaga about the case before replying to him. I would not want him to think that my response was in any sense dismissive of the case he made. I have listened to the greater detail that he has described in tonight's debate and, without giving any commitment to change past decisions, I assure him that I will return to the office, study the record of this debate, look again at the file and speak to him again.
	As I have outlined, we cannot make payments for work carried out outside the scheme, because we need to protect both the customer and the scheme. I wish to end by re-emphasising the vast positive impact that the Warm Front scheme is having on the lives of millions of households across the country. The scheme is recording the highest levels of demand we have ever seen; during the severe weather in January, the scheme manager received the highest number of inquiries ever in one week-50,000. That is 50 per cent. more than is normal for this time of year.
	The vast majority of recipients are delighted with the service provided from the point of contact to the follow-up check after installation. It is difficult to overstate the difference a well heated, well insulated property can make to the health, financial security and well-being of a household. There will be instances when complications occur, and we will continue to work with Eaga to ensure that standards are pushed even higher. However, across the Warm Front scheme a high quality, value-for-money service is being delivered, which is helping people to keep warm in their homes. I am proud of what the scheme has achieved, and I look forward to it continuing to help many more of our most vulnerable citizens in the time ahead.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 House adjourned.